George Allen
Senior Scientist
Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management (NESCAUM)
George Allen is a Senior Scientist at NESCAUM, where he is responsible for monitoring and exposure assessment activities including regional haze, air toxics, on and off-road diesel, wood smoke, and continuous aerosol measurement technologies. He received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Tufts University. He has authored or co-authored more than 30 peer-reviewed journal papers on the development and evaluation of measurement methods, exposure assessment, and air pollution health effects. Before joining NESCAUM in 2002, Mr. Allen was on staff at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) in Boston for more than 20 years, working on air pollution studies funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). While at HSPH, he developed several new techniques for real-time aerosol measurements, and is the primary inventor on several patents. Currently, Mr. Allen serves as staff lead for NESCAUM's Monitoring and Assessment Committee, is a member of the EPA-Science Advisory Board Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC), chairs the CASAC Air Monitoring Methods Subcommittee, and is a member of the CASAC NO2, SO2, and PM Panels. He represents states interests to EPA as a member of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies (NACAA) - EPA Monitoring Steering Committee, and is a member of EPA's AIRNow Steering Committee.
Bart Croes, P.E. (retired at CARB; former AQ-SPEC AB member)
Research Division Chief
California Air Resources Board (CARB)
Bart Croes is the Chief of the Research Division for the California Air Resources Board, with responsibilities for California’s ambient air quality standards; climate change science and mitigation of high global warming potential gases; health, exposure, atmospheric processes, and emissions control research; and indoor air quality. He was the Public Sector Co-Chair for the NARSTO Executive Assembly, a former member of the National Research Council Committee on Research Priorities for Airborne Particulate Matter, and the Committee on Energy Futures and Air Pollution in Urban China and the United States, a joint collaboration between the National Academy of Engineering, National Research Council, Chinese Academy of Engineering, and Chinese Academy of Sciences. He has been a peer reviewer for the National Research Council, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and numerous journals, and received the Editors' Citation for Excellence in Refereeing from the Journal of Geophysical Research. Mr. Croes has published peer-reviewed articles on air quality simulation modeling, emission inventory evaluation, reactivity-based VOC controls, toxic air contaminants, acid deposition, the weekend effect for ozone and PM, PM data analysis and trends, diesel particle traps, and climate change impacts on California.
Bahram Fazeli
Director of Research and Policy
Communities for a Better Environment (CBE)
Bahram Fazeli is Director of Research and Policy at Communities for a Better Environment (CBE). For the past 17 years at CBE, he has managed a number of research, policy, and planning projects and has worked closely with CBE community members, organizers and attorneys, providing technical assistance for various campaigns and projects. Bahram has served on a number of different regulatory advisory groups including those at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the California Air Resources Board, and the South Coast Air Quality Management District. He has been guest speaker at universities and schools in Southern California and panelist at various conferences raising awareness about environmental justice issues. Working with CBE staff and academic partners from different disciplines on collaborative and participatory action research projects, Bahram has authored, coauthored, and contributed to reports, articles, and academic papers covering different topics in environmental policy. He attended UCLA for his undergraduate and graduate training in Environmental Studies and Urban Planning.
Gayle Hagler, Ph.D.
Research Environmental Engineer
National Risk Management Research Laboratory
Office of Research and Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA)
Dr. Gayle Hagler is a research environmental engineer in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development. Dr. Hagler received a B.S. and M.S. degree in Civil Engineering, as well as a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Hagler’s research focuses on investigating spatial air pollution trends near sources and developing new measurement technology. She is a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.
Jorn Herner, Ph.D.
Research Branch Chief
California Air Resources Board (CARB)
Dr. Jorn Herner is Chief of the Research Planning and Emission Mitigation Branch in the Research Division at the California Air Resources Board. He oversees the Division’s extramural research program, the implementation of state’s greenhouse gas monitoring network, the vehicle emissions research program, and the use of new sensors and measurement methods to quantify pollutant exposure. Dr. Herner has a B.A. and M.S. from the University of California at Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Davis.
Michael Jerrett, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair, Department of Environmental Health Sciences
Director, Center for Occupational and Environmental Health
Fielding School of Public Health, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)
Professor Michael Jerrett is an internationally recognized expert in Geographic Information Science for Exposure Assessment and Spatial Epidemiology and is the chair of the Department of Environmental Health Science, Fielding School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles. He is also a professor in-residence in the Division of Environmental Health Science, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley. He has published some of the most widely cited papers in the fields of Exposure Assessment and Environmental Epidemiology in leading journals, including The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America, and Nature. In 2009, the United States National Academy of Science appointed Professor Jerrett to the Committee on “Future of Human and Environmental Exposure Science in the 21st Century.” The Committee concluded its task with the publication of a report entitled Exposure Science in the 21st Century: A Vision and a Strategy. In 2014 and 2015, he was named to the Thomson-Reuters List of Highly-Cited Researchers, indicating he is in the top 1% of all authors in the fields of Environment/Ecology in terms of citation by other researchers.
Janet Whittick
Policy and Communications Director
California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance (CCEEB)
Janet Whittick is the Policy and Communications Director at the California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance (CCEEB). CCEEB is a non-partisan, non-profit coalition that advances policies for a strong economy and a healthy environment. Founded in 1973 by the late Governor Edmund G. “Pat” Brown, CCEEB represents the perspectives of business, labor and public leaders. Ms. Whittick currently focuses on cross-media and multi-media environmental impacts, with a particular focus on air quality and energy. Ms. Whittick has worked with a diverse range of non-profit and public interest organizations over the years, including the statewide Flex Your Power campaign, the California Environmental Dialogue, the Business Energy Coalition (a cutting-edge demand response program), the University of California at San Francisco, and the Hmong-American Community, Inc. An honors graduate of the University of California at San Diego, Ms. Whittick has been proud to call California home for more than twenty-five years. She currently resides in Oakland.