Jenny Carrington is a Chartered Scientist (CSci) with nearly 20 years’ experience as an environmental specialist, working on a range of multi-disciplinary projects. Since graduating from her MSc in Environmental Monitoring and Assessment in 2005, she has been working on a variety of projects related to air quality, odour and geoenvironmental / contaminated land. Jenny has been working in private consultancy for construction engineering companies since 2007 and prior to that spent time working within the Environmental Health team at a Local Authority.

She is experienced in assessing environmental liabilities associated with projects and compliance with relevant policy and legislation. She is an experienced modeller, being fully conversant with atmospheric dispersion modelling as part of more detailed air quality and odour assessments. She is also experienced in detailed quantitative risk assessment for controlled waters risk assessments or human health. She has managed numerous air quality monitoring programs and intrusive ground investigations. This includes bioaerosol monitoring to fulfil permit requirements for waste treatment sites.

Jenny is a Member of the Institute of Air Quality Management (IAQM) and the Institution of Environmental Sciences (IES) and an Affiliate member of the Chartered Institution of Building Services (CIBSE). She currently works as an Associate Consultant at Cundall – a global, independent, multi-disciplinary consultancy delivering sustainable engineering and design solutions across the build environment.

Dr Simon Clark is a Scientific Leader specialising in aerobiology, vaccinology and infectious disease, within the Vaccine Development and Evaluation Centre, at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), at Porton Down. He has over 20 years of experience studying the aerosol transmission of human pathogens, the impact of phenotype and environmental factors on survival of pathogens in aerosols, and subsequent effects on infection and disease. UKHSA is an executive agency, sponsored by the Department of Health and Social Care, and is responsible for protecting all communities from the impact of health threats including those from infectious diseases, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear incidents

“For me, the CDT in Aerosol Science continues to provide a vital and unique resource for training current and future scientists, in addition to creating an international network of collaborations between academic, industry and government partners, resulting in an experienced and multidisciplinary forum with which to overcome the many challenges in this discipline.“

Carsten studied atmospheric physics and received his PhD at TU Munich combining particle instruments and homemade fluid mechanics solutions to characterize aerosols of same size on their optical properties. In 2008, he joined TSI as an application engineer and moved into a sales role a few years later still supporting aerosol and fluid mechanics researchers. Since 2023 Carsten is leading the sales and applications team for particle instruments in EMEA.

“I have never seen such a great approach for aerosol science and doctoral researchers in the field before and would have loved to have had such an opportunity during my PhD time.“

Will started his career as a postdoc in the Pharmaceutical Surface Science Lab at the University of Bath, UK focussing on advancing physical characterisation and simulation techniques for dry powder inhalers. In 2019 he joined Nanopharm as Head of Computational Pharmaceutics where he led the development of Nanopharm’s modelling and simulation capabilities from the ground up. Will is now a senior member of the Science & Technology department at Nanopharm where he supports customers in development and regulatory strategy and manages a portfolio of research and development projects. Will has authored a number of peer reviewed publications, has presented his work at a range of international conferences and is a Scientific Advisor for the Drug Delivery to the Lungs conference.

“Aerosol science is critical to Nanopharm’s mission of developing orally inhaled and nasal drug products. Through our partnership with the Aerosol Science CDT we have access to high quality training material for our staff, have joined a network of experts in the field and had the opportunity to conduct research and development through the centre. This has really benefitted our business and I look forward to a continued relationship into the future.“

It’s seven o’clock and I hear the alarm clock go off. Still in a fog, I drag myself under the hot shower. The bathroom mirror becomes opaque and my daughter, who is drawing shapes on it, asks me:

“Daddy, why can’t we see anything in the mirror anymore?”

Late, I rush to get her dressed to take her to school. I start the car.

“Daddy, what makes the car go?”

In the pouring rain, I rush to get her to school and the questions rain down:

“Daddy, why is it raining this morning? Daddy, what are all those clouds?”

We finally arrive at the school. The clouds dissipate, allowing the sun’s rays to penetrate. I take the opportunity to roll down the car window and take a deep breath of fresh, clean air. In front of us is a marvellous rainbow.

“Daddy, that’s a beautiful rainbow, do you think it’s magic?” This time we’ve finally arrived, and I take the time to answer her:

“Yes, Dove, it’s a beautiful rainbow, it’s a bit of magic, the magic of physics, have a good day, darling.

-Good day, Dad. What are you going to do today at work?

-I’m going to study these tiny droplets and try to understand their magic…”

 “Broaden my network with best aerosol scientists, find partners for major projects on aerosol science and metrology.”

My background training is in microbiology where over my 20 years at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) have developed a wide range of research interests in aerosol science, aerobiology and high containment research.

These includes understanding how microorganisms survive, transport, resuspend and transmit in the aerosol phase, development of infection models and assessment of therapeutics, to developing and testing novel bioaerosol sensing concepts.

A strand running through is delivery by multidisciplinary research drawing on and developing novel approaches through collaboration within Dstl or externally. Recently I have acted as Dstl point of contact for the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and Centre for Doctorial Training (EPSRC CDT) in Aerosol Science and developed an internal Aerosol Community to foster connections of aerosol researchers across Dstl.

 “The CDT in Aerosol Science has had a positive impact on Dstl as a source of training materials for staff, and delivery of research through targeted studentships (totalling five Tier 3 studentships to date). Dstl has recently placed one of its own staff on the scheme gaining benefits from the cohort-based training and networking. On a personal level, it is great to access the breadth of research covered by the CDT and see the development of the students and their research over the years. I look forward to increasing links within the CDT over the coming years.”

John Saffell was co-founder of Alphasense Ltd in 1997.  He has a BSc in Chemistry and MSc from MIT (1975) and PhD in Materials Science from Cambridge University (1979) and is Chairman of the Council of Gas Detection and Environmental Measurement (CoGDEM). Alphasense manufactures optical particle counters and, working with Universities of Cambridge and Hertfordshire, is developing new low cost ultrafine, BC and PM detection systems with support the CDT in Aerosols.

Dr Matthew D Wright is Senior Aerosol Scientist in the Toxicology Department, Centre for Radiation, Chemical & Environmental Hazards (CRCE), Public Health England, where his research interests include exposure and health risk assessment of a range of aerosols including airborne particulate matter, nano-enabled consumer products, carbon nanotubes and e-cigarettes. Public Health England is an executive agency of the Department of Health and Social Care whose mission is protection and improvement of the nation’s health and wellbeing, and reduction of health inequalities.

“Aerosol science underpins much of the research in inhalation toxicology and aerosol exposures undertaken within CRCE, and being part of the Partnership Board of the CDT in Aerosol Science provides a chance to help shape the training agenda for future researchers with the skills and knowledge to develop our programmes, and also to link with academics and industrial partners to undertake worthwhile research projects by hosting CDT students in areas of mutual interest.”

Nick Martin is the Science Area Leader of the Air Quality and Aerosol Metrology (AQAM) Group at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), UK. He is involved in research and development projects associated with AQ monitoring and is a member of CEN TC264 European Standardization Working Groups developing documentary measurement standards for low cost sensors, reference instruments and diffusive samplers.  Nick is an ex officio member of DEFRA’s Air Quality Expert Group (AQEG).

NPL is part of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, and its primary role is supporting measurements, whether providing demonstrably high accuracy or simply ensuring that they are fit-for-purpose.

“I am keen to be involved in this CDT to learn more about the new aerosol expertise and capabilities being developed in the academic world and industry. I am also enthusiastic that NPL’s work in this area be widely disseminated to the community, and to engage with early career scientists to build up networks of contacts for future collaborative projects or employment opportunities.”

Martin is Chief Operating Officer of Q-Flo Limited. He is Materials Scientist with board level experience in the private and public sectors including in multinational, SME and Start-up organisations. He has also undertaken Ministerially appointed roles delivering economic development programmes.