Dr. Linsey Marr, Charles P. Lunsford Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech
Science, Technology & Engineering in Policy (STEP) Program ’23 Keynote
Introduction by Dr. Michael Friedlander, Executive Director of the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute and Virginia Tech Vice President for Health Sciences and Technology
Monday, April 3rd at 1pm (Steger Hall Conference Center and via Zoom)
Light reception to follow
Registration required: https://forms.gle/ML2brcQCaHVzQ8Np7
The COVID-19 pandemic brought significant and urgent attention to various areas of scientific research, including indoor air quality. Fortunately, leading scholars like Virginia Tech’s very own Dr. Linsey Marr were ready to respond, informing rapidly-evolving public policy decision-making. However, the science-policy interface is complicated, as divergent values, interests, and perspectives lead to very different interpretations of the available information and how it should be translated into decisions with wide implications. In this keynote, Dr. Marr will reflect upon her experiences managing the complexities of informing consequential policy decisions as an internationally-recognized and widely sought expert throughout the pandemic.
Dr. Linsey Marr is the Charles P. Lunsford Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech. Her research group studies pollutants in indoor and outdoor air. She is especially interested in emerging or non-traditional aerosols such as microorganisms and engineered nanomaterials and how they are transformed in the environment. Prior to the pandemic, she was one of a small number of scientists who studied viruses in the air. She has worked with the WHO, CDC, and National Academies to update conventional wisdom about virus transmission and recommend guidelines for protecting public health. She has been interviewed hundreds of times and has contributed op-eds to The New York Times and The Washington Post about transmission of Covid-19. Marr is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, American Association for Aerosol Research, and the International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate. She received a B.S. in Engineering Science from Harvard and a Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from UC Berkeley and completed her post-doctoral training in Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at MIT.