IASTA 2026

About the speaker

Dr. Mukesh Sharma, a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, India, is a fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering and member of World Health Organization (WHO) advisory group on air pollution and UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Dr. Mukesh Sharma obtained his bachelor's degree in civil engineering from University of Indore, Master's degree in Civil Engineering from IIT Kanpur and a Ph.D. Degree from University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada in 1994. Prior to Joining IIT Kanpur in 1997, he was employed with Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), Delhi. He has been a visiting professor at University of Guelph, Canada and Kyoto University, Japan. His areas of research: air quality monitoring, modelling and management, exposure assessment and simulations. He has published/presented over 140 papers in journals and conferences. His significant contributions include (i) expert adviser to international agencies, WHO, International Council for Clean Transport (ICCT), Clean Air Asia, Manila, UNEP and the World Bank; (ii) development of national air quality index for the overall status of air quality and health impacts; and (iii) formulation of national air quality standards. International, national media and journals have highlighted his work; Nature, Science, The Economist, UK, British Broadcasting Corporation, Time Magazine, and Wall Street Journal.

Selected awards and recognitions

• World Health Organization (WHO) Global Air Pollution and Health - Technical Advisory Group Member, 2021
• Air Quality Research Lifetime Achievement Award, 2020 (IICAQM; IIT Madras, University of Bath, UK, Australian National University, Canberra)
• Vasvik Award for Environmental Science & Technology, 2019
• Kong Ha Award in Air Quality from Clean Air Asia, a UN supported foundation, 2012
• Associate Editor, Int. Journal Env. Engineering Science and Journal of Urban Climate
• Member Editorial Board, Int. Journal Human and Ecological Risk Assessment
• Hiyoshi Environmental Award, Hiyoshi Corp., Japan, Excellence in Research and Technology, 2012
• Recipient of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Fellowship, 1998
• Ministry of Environment (Ont.), Canada award for excellence in Research and Technology Development, 1994
• Recipient of Faculty of Engineering Award for Excellence in Graduate Studies, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada in three successive years: 1991, 1992 and 1993

Appointments to various national committees

1. Member Project Review committee to review the progress of new Emission Inventory and Source Apportionment Studies in Delhi-NCR, Commission for Air Quality Management in NCR & Adjoining Areas
2. Member Expert Committee for abatement of air pollution caused by vehicular emission, Commission for Air Quality Management in NCR & Adjoining Areas
3. Member Expert Committee in compliance with the Hon'ble Supreme Court's order regarding to undertake a systematic study in reference to the functioning of the SPCBs as well as the PCCs, Commission for Air Quality Management in NCR & Adjoining Areas
4. Expert member to the Coordination Committee on Air Quality Management in the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) Airshed, Ministry of Environment, Govt. of India
5. Expert Member, committee for assessing air quality data and recommending cities for inclusion under National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), Ministry of Environment, Govt. of India
6. Member Expert Group on Air Pollution Mitigation, DPCC, Govt. of NCTD, Delhi
7. Chairman CPCB Expert Committee on Ozone pollution Constituted in compliance with Original Application no. 1069 of 2024 before the Hon'ble NGT
8. Nominated to the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) relating to eminent conservationists, ecologists and environmentalists

Abstract details

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About the speaker

Chandra Venkataraman is a Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Centre for Climate Studies at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. She applies her expertise in aerosol science to research at the intersection of technology and emissions, climate science, and air quality. Her research has resulted in over 150 widely cited publications, a book, and four patents.

She was the Founding Head of the Centre for Climate Studies at IIT Bombay, and collaboratively led the multi-institutional COALESCE network (ncapcoalesce.iitb.ac.in) and the PAVITRA group. She participates in policy networks globally, including the Climate and Clean Air Coalition and the Global Burden of Disease working group. She has extensively mentored research students and supported the advancement of women in STEM.

She is a fellow of the National Academies of Science and Engineering in India (INAE-2016, IASc-2018, INSA-2022) and The World Academy of Sciences (2025). Her recognitions include an IIT Delhi Distinguished Alumni Award (2024), a Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship (2012), the PRL Vikram Sarabhai Award (2006), and teaching excellence awards at IIT Bombay.

About the speaker

Prof. Y.S. Mayya, formerly from BARC, is a visiting faculty in the department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Bombay. He is an Aerosol Physicist engaged in studies on diverse aspects of fine particle science, its history and their technological applications for the past 51 years. He is associated with theoretical and experimental studies in the area of Electrospray air cleaner technology, aerosol charging, modelling of ionizer systems, plume coagulation, charged particle levitation, aerosol spray drying and transmission of diseases through aerosol route. His expertise includes radiation epidemiology, radiation safety, radon emission modelling and transport, nuclear aerosol behaviour and experimentation. He spear-headed the establishment of the first Nuclear Aerosol Test Facility in BARC, country-wide radon mapping project, and conceptualized the setting up of Outdoor Air Cleaning Systems in Delhi as a technological alternative for combating urban air pollution. He has authored 206 publications in refereed Journals and mentored generations of aerosol scientists during his long career at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre and at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.

Prof. Y.S. Mayya was nominated an Aerosol Pioneer by American Association for Aerosol Research, in 2018. He was the President of the Asian Aerosol Research Assembly (2005-2007), member of the Editorial Board of Journal of Aerosol Science (2004-2014) and recipient of K.G. Vohra Memorial award (2018). He was conferred “IASTA Fellow” award in 2025.

Abstract

Aerosols are a mixture of solid or liquid particles suspended in air. The sources of aerosol emissions are diverse and include both natural and anthropogenic sources; as a result, their physical (size, shape, and texture), chemical, and optical properties vary across sub-micron and super-micron radius ranges, and consequently their removal processes and residence times differ significantly. Aerosols play a vital role in cloud formation and air pollution, among others. Aerosol pollution and air quality are global issues, linked to climate, as the type and amount of pollutants at the surface and in the column govern the chemical composition, physical and optical characteristics of aerosols, which in turn determine their radiative effects. The radiative forcing due to aerosols is negative (cooling) and masks the global warming (positive) due to greenhouse gases. Knowledge and information about ground-level aerosol pollution are critical concerns from an air quality and public health perspective. The space-time variations in aerosol characteristics and aerosol types arise from different aerosol sources and atmospheric dynamics, including boundary-layer dynamics, temperature and relative humidity variations, and long-range transport. Aerosols remain a highly uncertain component of the global climate and climate change. Results obtained from observational constraints on aerosol characteristics, composition, and radiative effects on a seasonal scale across the globe, with a robust evaluation of model simulations and satellite retrievals, including potential causes of biases, will be presented. The issues and challenges involved in measuring aerosol composition and simulating spatiotemporal aerosol variations will be outlined.

About the speaker

Prof. Srikanthan Ramachandran is a Senior Professor at the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad. He works extensively on measuring aerosol properties using state-of-the-art techniques, as well as modeling their impacts on the radiation budget, atmospheric temperature, and climate using radiative transfer and general circulation/global climate models. He is an author of the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate science assessment, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, and an author of the upcoming Seventh IPCC Assessment Report. He is a reviewer and an author on the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion. He was a Member of the International Radiation Commission (2001-2008). He was a Visiting Research Staff Member in the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Program at the NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL), Princeton University, during 1997-1999 and 2004-2005. He was a Senior Fellow at the NASA Ames Research Center in California during 2008 and 2011-12 under the NASA Postdoctoral Program (administered earlier by the National Research Council (NRC)). He was a Senior Fellow at the Research Institute for Sustainability at GFZ - Helmholtz Center for Geosciences, Potsdam, Germany, formerly known as the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in 2019. He is a recipient of the Indian National Science Academy (INSA) Young Scientist Award (1997), Global Change System for Analysis, Research and Training (START) Young Scientist Award (2002), START Visiting Scientist Award (2004), and the NASA Group Achievement Award (2009). He has published over 130 papers on aerosols, radiative effects, and climate in refereed international journals. He is an Associate Editor of Frontiers in Environmental Sciences. He is among the World’s Top 2% of scientists, according to the list published by Stanford University. He is the author of Atmospheric Aerosols: Characteristics and Radiative Effects, published by CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, USA, an exhaustive textbook that presents up-to-date information across a wide range of fields related to atmospheric aerosols in the troposphere and stratosphere. He has mentored and is mentoring several graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.

Invited lecture

India’s construction and urban development sectors are experiencing remarkable growth, driven by population expansion, economic progress, and rapid urban migration. While this growth is essential to meet the rising demands for infrastructure and housing, it also places immense pressure on critical natural resources such as energy, water, land, and raw materials.

Indoor air is the focus of our group. Our lab has been working towards enhancing the indigenous capabilities within the country to develop inexpensive, portable and readily deployable aerosol measuring instruments like the PM₁ sampler (model: APM 577, Envirotech) and a high-volume PM_2.5 sampler (Airshed). Our group is currently working on devices to control air pollution both within challenging occupational settings and at the indoor receptor end. The presentation will provide a glimpse of these technologies from their conception to field deployment.

Biography

Prof. Tarun Gupta is The Pawan Tewari Goldman Sachs Sustainability Faculty Chair Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at IIT Kanpur. He completed his M.Sc. in Chemistry at IIT Roorkee and M.Tech. in Environmental Science and Engineering at IIT Bombay, and earned his doctorate in Environmental Health from Harvard University School of Public Health.

A submicron aerosol sampler he designed and developed was commercialized by Envirotech Instruments Pvt. Ltd., Delhi, as the PM₁ sampler (model APM 577). He also transferred technology to BARC, Mumbai, for retrofitting a high-volume PM₁₀ sampler into a high-volume PM_2.5 sampler at low additional cost; the technology was also transferred to Airshed, Kanpur. His two-stage bioaerosol sampler has been licensed to Airshed.

He has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed international journal articles, edited 9 books, filed 10 Indian patents and 6 design patents, and supervised 17 PhD and 50 M.Tech. students. His awards include the INAE Young Engineer, INSA Medal for Young Scientist, NASI-Scopus Young Scientist, VNMM Award, and INAE Innovator and Entrepreneur Award. He has served as Head of Civil Engineering and Dean of Research and Development at IIT Kanpur.

Abstract

Atmospheric science has traveled a long path, from ozone sondes that collected point observations to multi-core, multi-year, three-dimensional meteorological and chemical transport models that now operate at scales ranging from urban to global. This progress did not happen overnight. A large community of scientists contributed collectively over decades, and their combined effort resolved many open questions about how meteorology and aerosol processes interact in the atmosphere. Despite this progress, knowledge gaps remain, and the field holds significant untapped potential, especially for the Indian Subcontinent. This presentation reviews advancements in atmospheric modeling, traces how the community built its current understanding between air quality and health, and highlights key research opportunities, emerging cross-disciplinary tools, that can move our collective effort forward and translate scientific and technical advances into better air quality outcomes.

Biography

Dr. Sarath Guttikunda, is an alumni of IIT-Kharagpur, 1997 batch Chemical Engineering. He is the Founder/Director of UrbanEmissions.Info in India, is an adjunct professor at Indian Institute of Technology (Delhi).

He conducts research in an independent capacity to support science, policy, and public dialogue on air pollution, for which he received the International Award by the American Geophysical Union in 2022.

UrbanEmissions' umbrella programs, Air Pollution knowledge Assessments for cities (APnA) -- builds air quality information baselines for cities in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. He received his Doctorate from the University of Iowa in the United States in 2002.

About the speaker

Prof. Dr. Ralf Zimmermann is Professor and Chair of Analytical and Environmental Chemistry at the University of Rostock, where he also heads the Department of Life, Light, Matter. Since 2026, he has additionally served as Distinguished Professor of Mass Spectrometry and Environmental Chemistry at the University of Eastern Finland. His research focuses on analytical chemistry, aerosol science, environmental chemistry, and the health effects of combustion emissions.

He previously led the Comprehensive Molecular Analytics department at Helmholtz-Center Munich and has coordinated international research collaborations on aerosols and health. His honors include the Adel Sarofim Award for research on combustion by-products and their health effects, an honorary doctorate from the University of Eastern Finland, and a lifetime achievement award in comprehensive multidimensional gas chromatography.