Lynn M. Hildemann | email
Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Affiliated Faculty at the Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University
Lynn Hildemann is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, and an Affiliated Faculty at the Woods Institute for the Environment with Stanford University. She holds MS and PhD degrees in environmental engineering science from the California Institute of Technology.
Professor Hildemann became fascinated with air pollution while growing up in smoggy Los Angeles. Her research has focused on the sources and chemical characteristics of airborne particles, both indoors and outdoors. She is especially interested in human exposure to allergenic and toxic particles, such as cat dander, molds, and secondhand cigarette smoke.
One of Professor Hildemann's recent field projects measured the exposure of women to cookstove smoke in rural Bangladesh - these exposures can be very high, because cooking often takes place indoors, with no stack to vent the smoke outside, and using dried leaves or cow dung for fuel. Another project, just finishing up, examined what potentially toxic vapors are emitted from some construction glues commonly used by consumers.
Lynn Hildemann's current research projects include determining how the chemical characteristics of anthropogenic air pollutants affect the formation of cloud droplets; collecting covert field measurements of secondhand smoke levels inside casinos; and quantifying how much higher someone's exposure to smoke is when he or she is breathing close to a burning emission source like a cigarette.
Professor Hildemann teaches graduate level courses on air pollution physics and chemistry, indoor air quality, and atmospheric particles. She also teaches an undergraduate class in air quality management, which introduces control strategies for minimizing air pollutant emissions, while also teaching the students how to think and quantitatively analyze problems like engineers.
During her fellowship year, Professor Hildemann will review literature and databases to investigate how personal exposure to toxic air pollutants may be affected by gender-related factors, such as occupational choices and time typically spent in different locations and environments.
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