Rufus D Edwards

Biography

Rufus D. Edwards, Ph.D., is Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health and Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs at the Joe C. Wen School of Population and Public Health at the University of California, Irvine. Dr Edwards received a Ph.D. in Exposure Measurement and Assessment from Rutgers University and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in 1999. Dr. Edwards studies approaches to mitigate exposures of wildland firefighters; indoor air; vaping emissions as well as on populations in less industrialized nations exposed to emissions from household solid fuel used for cooking and space heating.

Dr Edwards served as a member of the WHO Indoor Air Quality Guidelines Development Group and was lead convening author for the evidence chapter on emissions from household solid fuel use. He developed the Household Energy Assessment Rapid Tool (HEART) for WHO with Dr Karin Troncoso, which has been applied in more than 15 countries to assess readiness to address access to clean energy technologies. Dr Edwards also worked with the WHO Urban Health Initiative to assist policymakers academics and NGOs in identifying evidence-based strategies to reduce city level burdens of air pollution in Accra, Ghana, and Katmandu Nepal by modelling of economic and health impacts using scenario development combined with global burden of disease approaches. Dr Edwards has broad experience at a policy level promoting evidence-based policies to reduce air pollution exposures working with government ministries, public health institutes and other stakeholders as technical consultant to UNICEF, the World Health Organization, the Swiss Agency for Development (SDC) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Dr Edwards received the Joan M. Daisey Outstanding Young Scientist Award from the International Society of Exposure Science in 2009.

Education

• B.Sc. in Biological Sciences, Birmingham University, Birmingham, UK, 1992
• M.S. in Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, 1995
• Ph.D. in Exposure Measurement and Assessment, Rutgers University, and University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, NJ (joint degree), 1999

Distinctions

• Joan M. Daisey Outstanding Young Scientist Award, International Society of Exposure Science, 2009
• Best Paper Award, Indoor Air journal, 2011