Inaugural Lecture of Professor Christian Pfrang

Join Professor Christian Pfrang for his Inaugural Lecture, hosted at the Muirhead Building - Room G15 (R21 on the Campus Map) 

This is a hybrid event: you can register for virtual access via Zoom here.  

Night-time Breakdown of Volatiles, Levitated Olive Oil, Bees, Peace Lilies & Air Fresheners: a Journey through Indoor & Outdoor Air Pollution 

"Air pollution affects us all. It is the largest environmental risk factor for disease and premature death, and carries a major cost for our society, our economy and the environment. In this lecture I will cover a wide range of air pollution research considering reactions of atmospheric gases and particles outdoors and indoors, and their impacts on humans and pollinators. I will also include associated science communication efforts and challenges."

Christian Pfrang studied chemistry at the TU Munich, University of Oxford, and FU Berlin before his DPhil in Atmospheric Chemistry with Prof. Richard P. Wayne in the Physical and Theoretical Chemistry Laboratory at the University of Oxford. Following a stint as Carlo Schmid Fellow in the research department of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and a Leverhulme Visiting Fellowship in the Department of Geology at Royal Holloway University of London, Prof. Pfrang took up a tenure-track RCUK Academic Fellowship at the University of Reading in 2007 before becoming Lecturer and then Associate Professor of Physical & Atmospheric Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry. Prof. Pfrang was a Visiting Professor at the University of Lille (France) in 2016. In 2018, Prof. Pfrang moved to a Senior Lecturer post in the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham, where he was promoted to Reader and in 2023 to Professor of Atmospheric Science while retaining his link to Reading as a Senior Visiting Research Fellow in the Department of Meteorology.  

Prof. Pfrang’s research is mainly in the area of gas-phase and heterogeneous atmospheric chemistry focussing on the fate of atmospheric aerosols and their impacts on air quality and climate change. He is also studying reactions of initiators of atmospheric oxidation (in particular ozone and nitrate radicals) with volatile organic compounds (VOCs), e.g. stress-induced plant emissions. Experimental studies mainly developing levitation, monolayer, X-ray & neutron scattering techniques are complemented by computational work predicting the kinetic behaviour of species of atmospheric importance. Prof. Pfrang is also linking atmospheric chemistry to related research topics in meteorology, urban greening, environmental and plant sciences to advance the understanding of the urban environment with a recent focus on indoor air quality and its wider implications

Everyone is welcome to this event, and all are invited to join Christian after the lecture for refreshments in the Lapworth Museum.