Why we need to invest in air quality
We lose two years off of the average life expectancy across the world due to particulate pollution. So, now is the opportune time to invest in air quality.
Christa Hasenkopf, PhD believes in the power of harmonizing disparate data and connecting it to communities to fight society's biggest problems. She is the former Director and co‐founder of OpenAQ, a non‐profit housing a real‐time global open air quality data platform and community. She is also an adjunct associate professor at Georgetown University in the School of Foreign Service and an adjunct at Johns Hopkins University, teaching undergraduate and masters courses on international air quality policy and open data.
Previously, Hasenkopf was the first Chief Air Pollution Advisor to the Medical Director at the U.S. Department of State. Prior to this work, she was a science and technology fellow in the Global Development Lab at USAID. Hasenkopf received a PhD in atmospheric & oceanic sciences from the University of Colorado and a BS in astronomy & astrophysics from Penn State University. She is a former Echoing Green Fellow, US National Science Foundation International Research Fellow, Fulbright Fellow, and corps member in Teach for America. Outputs of her work have been featured in The New York Times, Science Magazine, Nature, IEEE Spectrum, Forbes, National Geographic, Times of India, Nepali Times, and The Wall Street Journal.
We lose two years off of the average life expectancy across the world due to particulate pollution. So, now is the opportune time to invest in air quality.
Efforts to improve air quality are hugely underfunded, but only $10 million is needed to fill the global air quality data gap and improve millions of lives.