Peter Adams

Peter Adams is the Thomas Lord Professor of Engineering, with appointments in the Department of Engineering & Public Policy, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Department of Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. His research largely focuses on the development of chemical transport models and their application to decision-making, especially related to PM2.5. His research group has developed and applied two "reduced complexity" air quality models, EASIUR and REACH, for policy evaluation. Adams also has extensive expertise in the simulation of aerosol microphysical processes, ultrafine particles and the formation of cloud condensation nuclei in global climate models. Areas of research have also included air quality benefits of decarbonization, air quality in developing countries, the effects of climate change on air quality, short-lived climate forcers, atmospheric ammonia and particulate matter formation from livestock operations, and the simulation organic particulate matter.

Adams was selected for a Fulbright grant to collaborate with researchers at the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate in Bologna, has been a Visiting Senior Research Scientist at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and received the Sheldon K. Friedlander Award for outstanding doctoral thesis from the American Association for Aerosol Research. He has previously served on the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Air Quality Technical Advisory Committee and the Allegheny County Health Department’s Air Toxics New Guidelines Proposal Committee as well as service to the American Association for Aerosol Research. He has served on US EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee's PM Review Panel and other EPA advisory panels.

Adams received his BS degree in Chemical Engineering, summa cum laude, from Cornell University. He was awarded a Hertz Foundation Applied Science Fellowship for graduate study and received MS and PhD degrees in Chemical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology. He also holds an associated faculty position in the Chemical Engineering department at Carnegie Mellon.