Distinguished Lecture - Lidia Morawska

Speaker’s bio: Lidia Morawska is Distinguished Professor at the Queensland University of
Technology in
Brisbane, Australia, and the Director of the International Laboratory for Air Quality and
Health at
QUT, which is a Collaborating Centre of the World Health Organization. Lidia also holds
positions
of Adjunct Professor, Institute for Environmental and Climate Research (ECI), Jinan
University,
Guangzhou, China, of Vice-Chancellor Fellow, Global Centre for Clean Air Research
(GCARE),
University of Surrey, UK. She conducts fundamental and applied research in the
interdisciplinary
field of air quality and its impact on human health and the environment, with a specific
focus on
science of airborne particulate matter. Lidia is a physicist and received her doctorate at
the
Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland. An author of over nine hundred journal papers,
book
chapters and refereed conference papers, Lidia has been involved at the executive level
with a
number of relevant national and international professional bodies, is a member of the
Australian
Academy of Science and a recipient of numerous scientific awards.

About the Lecture:
Why is clean air an unmet challenge, and will the pandemic help change this?


The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated how ill-prepared the world has been to address the basic question: How can we minimise the risk of airborne infection transmission for any respiratory viruses in a countless number of buildings where most of the population spends a substantial fraction of the day. We need a profound change in how we view this risk and how we apply science, building engineering solutions and public health policies to reduce it. But in doing this we need to consider all other requirements, including comfort and the control of indoor air quality, and energy-efficiency in the context of local climate and outdoor air pollution. The presentation will explore how to make this vision a reality on Earth –and may be one day on Mars too!