Expertise: Respiratory Health; Air Pollution; Air Monitoring; Public Health Impacts of Traffic
Ed Avol is Professor of Clinical Preventive Medicine and Director of the Environmental Health Division in the USC Department of Preventive Medicine. His research has focused on understanding short and long-term effects of air pollution on humans and on documenting human exposure. He has been a key investigator in multiple health and exposure research studies and has co-authored over 150 peer-reviewed publications. He currently serves as Director of both the National Institutes of Health Southern California Environmental Health Sciences Center and of the Spatial Exposure and Analytics Core (SEAC) within the center. He has served on United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) Clean Air Science Advisory Committee (CASAC) expert panel reviews for PM, NOx, SOx, and ozone to help review and recommend National Ambient Air Quality Standards, in addition to numerous other advisory committees for a variety of agencies and institutions. He is active in community outreach and education, particularly with regard to children’s health and the health and air quality impacts of Los Angeles and Long Beach seaport-related cargo goods movement. He directs and teaches in the undergraduate Environmental Health Track through the USC Health Promotion Program, and was awarded the 2017 Constance Mehlman Award from the International Society for Exposure Science, for his career work in applying exposure science to improving policy for public health.