| Lidia Morawska | |
| Birth Date: | 1952 11, df=y |
| Birth Place: | Tarnów, Poland[1] |
| Nationality: | Polish |
| Fields: | radiation physics, environmental physics, atmospheric physics |
| Workplaces: | McMaster University University of Toronto Queensland University of Technology |
| Alma Mater: | Jagiellonian University |
| Known For: | research on air quality |
| Awards: | L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Awards (2023) Matthew Flinders Medal and Lecture (2023) Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (2020) Eureka Prize (2018) David Sinclair Award (2017) |
Lidia Morawska (born 10 November 1952, Tarnów, Poland) is a Polish–Australian[2] physicist and distinguished professor at the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, at the Queensland University of Technology and director of the International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health (ILAQH) at QUT. She is also co-director of the Australia-China Centre for Air Quality Science and Management, an adjunct professor at the Jinan University in China, and a Vice-Chancellor fellow at the Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE), University of Surrey in the United Kingdom.[3] Her work focuses on fundamental and applied research in the interdisciplinary field of air quality and its impact on human health, with a specific focus on atmospheric fine, ultrafine and nanoparticles. Since 2003, she expanded her interests to include also particles from human respiration activities and airborne infection transmission.
In 2018, she received the Eureka Prize for Infectious Diseases Research, as well as the American Association for Aerosol Research (AAAR) 2017 David Sinclair Award.[4] In 2020, she contributed to the area of airborne infection transmission of viruses, including COVID-19. In that same year she became a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science,[5] [6] [7] and received the 2021 International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate Special 2020 Award for an Extraordinary Academic Leadership. In 2021, she was included on Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world.[8] [9]
She was born in 1952 in Tarnów to father Henryk Jaskuła, a yachtsman and sailing captain, and mother Zofia. At the age of two, she moved with her family to Przemyśl where she grew up.[10] She studied physics and received her doctorate in 1982 at the Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland for research on radon and its progeny.[11]
From 1982 to 1987, she was a research fellow at the Institute of Physics and Nuclear Techniques, Academy of Mining and Metallurgy, Cracow, Poland.
Prior to joining the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in 1991, she conducted research first at McMaster University in Hamilton as a postdoctoral research fellow of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and later at the University of Toronto between 1987 and 1991.[11]
She has conducted research in this field since 1991, when she established the Environmental Aerosol Laboratory at QUT, renamed the International Laboratory for Air Quality and Health in 2002. She subsequently assumed a position as associate professor at the QUT in 2003.[12]
She is a long-standing collaborator and advisor to the World Health Organization, contributing to all WHO air quality-related guidelines over the past two decades. She co-chairs the group responsible for the WHO Air Quality Guidelines, on which nations base their air quality standards.[13]
In addition, she is Associate Editor of Science of the Total Environment journal, and in 2020.[13]
Her research interests and scientific contributions fall into eight main areas: (i) Instrumental techniques for ultrafine particle detection in the air; (ii) Combustion as a source of urban atmospheric pollution; (iii) The science of ambient particle dynamics; (iv) Indoor Air Quality; (v) Lung Deposition; (vi) Risk assessment and mitigation; (vii) Developing and utilising advanced networks for air quality sensing and analyses; and (viii) particles from respiratory activities and infection control.
She has received funding from different sources and for different research projects including:
| Project | Funding | ||
| 2020 | "The Air is Fair, Here and There": Queensland Communities Assessing and Comparing Air Quality | Queensland Citizen Science | |
| 2019 | Overcoming cultural and developmental barriers to transition towards cleaner energy practices in Oceania: A pilot study in Solomon Islands | NHMRC CAR Seed Funding | |
| 2019 | Airborne ultrafine particles in Australian cities | ARC Linkage Projects | |
| 2018 | Assessment of children's exposure to air pollution in Fiji, its drivers and the burden of disease attributable to it | NHMRC CAR Seed Funding | |
| 2017 | Establishing Advanced Networks for Air Quality Sensing and Analyses | ARC Linkage Projects | |
| 2012 | The Effects of Nano and Ultrafine Particles from Traffic Emissions on Children s Health (UPTECH) | ARC Linkage Projects |
During the COVID-19 pandemic, she assembled and led a multidisciplinary group of 239 scientists guiding public health authorities worldwide to recognise the significance of airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 virus-laden particles and the risk it poses to human health.[14] Based on this work, the WHO and other national authorities such as the US Center for Disease Control, subsequently updated their advice regarding airborne transmission. In 2020, she became a Member of the Task Force on Workplace, School, and Travel Safety, The Lancet COVID Commission, looking into building-related risk factors which are a critical, but missing, component of SARS-CoV-2 outbreak investigations.
Her "Ultrafine Particles from Traffic Emissions and Children’s Health" project demonstrated that exposure to airborne ultrafine particles emitted in large quantities from vehicles was independently, positively associated with both systemic and respiratory inflammation and therefore has significant deleterious health impacts. In 2015, this evidence convinced the World Health Organization and individual countries to review national standards to protect children by controlling their exposure to ultrafine particles. As a result, they changed their air quality guidelines to include recommendations regarding ultrafine particles.[15]
Since 2012, she has also contributed work on international scientific programs, such as the Global Burden of Disease studies which quantitatively assess the impact of exposure to air pollution as a disease risk.[16]
Her scientific career has been recognised and awarded in multiple occasions by various organisations, among those are:[17]
She is credited with more than 950 academic publications, including scientific articles, book chapters, and conference papers. Among the most cited publications are:[28]
Selected publications on Covid-19: