- Sponsor
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Originating Calendar
- CEE Seminars and Conferences
Indoor Air Quality: Virus Inactivation, Surveillance, and AI Application
Advisor: Professor Thanh H. Nguyen
Abstract:
Modern urban residents spend around 90% of their daily lives indoors, making indoor air quality (IAQ) a major public health concern. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the critical importance of biological air contaminants and the role that respiratory viruses play in global disruptions. Airborne transmission of respiratory viruses, such as Influenza A and coronaviruses, poses significant challenges in these indoor environments. To protect public health from viruses spreading through the air, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of virus transport and fate in environmental settings, as well as the design of effective virus inactivation technologies.
Despite this awareness, the fundamental mechanisms governing the natural decay and engineered disinfection of respiratory viruses in indoor environments remain unclear. Mechanistic insight is essential because it reveals which components of the virion are damaged, thereby directly guiding the selection of appropriate environmental surveillance methods. Furthermore, the rapid mutation of viruses has outpaced existing environmental surveillance tools, limiting our ability to accurately monitor their spread. At the same time, building engineers and health professionals are increasingly using artificial intelligence for guidance, yet the reliability of these tools for IAQ decisions is unknown. To address these gaps, this dissertation proposes a comprehensive framework that bridges fundamental virus inactivation mechanisms, enhanced genomic surveillance systems, and the evaluation of AI applications to improve indoor air quality and protect public health.