IAQ Radio

Bill Sothern, DrPH, CIH, LEED AP - Chris Mikrut - Michael Berg, PhD - Misalignment between Clinical Mold Antigen Extracts and Airborne Molds Found in Water-damaged Homes

This week we welcome Dr. Bill Sothern, Chris Mikrut and Dr. Michael Berg to discuss their recent paper called Misalignment between Clinical Mold Antigen Extracts and Airborne Molds Found in Water-damaged Homes. We will look at the current antigen testing being done for mold allergies then discuss their results and what changes could be beneficial. The authors have collected a great deal of data from the real world that will be of interest to our audience and hopefully the medical community. LEARN MORE this week on IAQ Radio+
 
Dr. Bill Sothern is a Certified Industrial Hygienist, LEED AP, and Chief Operating Officer of Microecologies, Inc., a NYC-based indoor environmental consulting firm he founded in 1993. He earned his Doctorate in Public Health from CUNY, and is a recognized contributor to NYC DOHMH, NIEHS, HUD and WHO guidance documents. Bill is an active advocate for changes in law and policy that can improve health outcomes at the population level. He is the primary author of NYC Local Law 13 - 2014 that prohibits the use of paper-faced gypsum boards in moisture-prone building areas, which serves to reduce the occurrence of mold growth and the incidence of asthma. Bill is an active health researcher and is the lead author of the article Misalignment between Clinical Mold Antigen Extracts and Airborne Molds Found in Water-Damaged Homes published in the May 2022 issue of the Annals of the American Thoracic Society. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, he has conducted environmental assessments for schools, NGO's and businesses throughout NYC to assess HVAC systems and implement ventilation controls to reduce airborne concentration levels of SARS-CoV-2 and thereby reduce risk of transmission of COVID-19 in schools and workplaces. Bill currently serves as a court-appointed independent consultant on mold, water damage and ventilation issues to the NYC Public Housing Authority (NYCHA).
 
Chris Mikrut is a Senior Investigator at Microecologies, Inc., an indoor environmental consulting firm in New York City. He earned his Masters Degree in Environmental and Occupational Health Science from Hunter College where he was awarded the prestigious National Institute of Safety and Health’s (NIOSH) Scholarship. Chris is an EPA Certified Lead Risk Assessor and NYS Certified Mold Assessor, and over the past 10 years has conducted over 1,000 indoor air quality and indoor environmental inspections in residential and commercial settings involving water damage and mold growth conditions, chemical vapor emissions, construction dust and crystalline silica infiltration, lead-based paint hazards, and other indoor environmental exposure factors. Chris has been a key contributor to program development for response to mold, water damage, and exhaust ventilation issues in NYC Public Housing Authority's (NYCHA) and administration of classroom and field training for NYCHA staff. Chris has also collaborated on several projects as part of Microecologies' research team and is a co-author of the article Misalignment between Clinical Mold Antigen Extracts and Airborne Molds Found in Water-Damaged Homes published in the May 2022 issue of the Annals of the American Thoracic Society.
 
Dr. Michael Berg joined Eurofins EMLab P&K in 2005 and worked as Department Manager, Regional Director and Technical Director. He holds a Ph.D. in Biology from the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany. Dr. Berg researched plant pathology and plant genetics as postdoctoral fellow at Oklahoma State University. He also worked in fungicide research for BASF in Germany. Dr. Berg engages in training and other educational events with focus on the topics of infection control, water risk management
and molecular biology.

Bradley Prezant, MBA, MSPH, CIH, COH, CAQP - Assessing Risk of Infection & Air Exchange – CO2 Pitfalls, SF6 Benefits

This week we welcome back Brad Prezant to discuss Assessing Risk Infection and Air Exchange. We will also focus on different methods for doing this type of assessment along with the pitfalls and benefits of different methods.
 
Brad Prezant is an evidence-based public health scientist with a background in epidemiology, occupational health & hygiene, and ergonomics. Until the company was sold in 2007, he operated Prezant Associates, Inc. in Seattle, providing consulting, training, and laboratory services for 20+ years. He is currently Principal Consultant at PREZANT Environmental in Melbourne, Australia. After migrating to New Zealand in 2008, Mr. Prezant spent 3 years at Massey University researching a variety of occupational health issues including solvent exposure to auto body painters, fumigant and VOC exposures from shipping containers, and dust exposures to woodworkers. He previously was Chief Editor of AIHA’s first edition of Recognition, Evaluation, and Control of Indoor Mold, an author of several other standard of care documents, and is the Past Vice President for Practice of ISIAQ (International Society of Indoor Air Quality & Climate). He is involved in a wide variety of indoor air quality and occupational health issues, from indoor moisture and mould to ventilation, traditional IH exposure assessment, and infection transmission indoors. He recently managed the hotel quarantine program in Victoria, Australia.
 
LEARN MORE this week on IAQ Radio+

Robert Bean, FASHRAE - Adam Muggleton - The Edifice Complex Hosts & Radio Joe Team Up to Solve the Worlds IAQ & Building Science Problems

This week we have a little change of pace for our audience. We are playing back a new show that Radio Joe recorded recently with the hosts of the Edifice Complex Podcast, Robert Bean and Adam Muggleton. It was a wide ranging show on the podcasting, IAQ, building science and disaster restoration. We may not have solved all the world’s problems but we did at least start to define what’s needed. This thought provoking show with two worldly Canadians, one of whom is a transplant from the UK, was entertaining and informative. It was a broad discussion about the past, present and future of the built environment. Radio Joe will be on live to answer questions during the playback.
 
Robert Bean is a retired engineering technology professional having practiced in building construction engineering technology and mechanical engineering. He specialized in the design of indoor environments and high-performance building systems. Bean is a third term ASHRAE Distinguished Lecturer, recipient of the Lou Flagg Award, and Distinguished Service Award. He has authored numerous papers, articles, and course curriculums and serves on several technical committees related to indoor environmental quality, building, and thermal energy systems.
 
Motto: Design for People, Good Buildings Follow
 
Adam Muggleton has been immersed in property and construction for 37 years. Having worked in 20 countries and held leadership positions at several firms, Adam has a unique skill set derived from experience in property development, design team management, project management, and building commissioning. Adam is passionate about promoting the concept of Commissioning Management as an effective project management tool, to hand over buildings that actually work. He devises and delivers successful project, leadership and testing strategies that achieve optimum outcomes for those involved and affected.
 
As an industry leader, Adam served on the CIBSE Commissioning Code “A” committee for the 1996 code re-write and the UK BSRIA steering group for Application Guide 16/2002 Variable Flow Water Systems. Adam also served as an international board member for the USA Building Commissioning Association.
 
Adam’s focus is on property development as a:
Property Industry Blogger, Podcaster, and Philosopher
Chartered Project Management Surveyor (RICS)
Qualified Building Commissioning Professional
 
Philosophically, the question is this, “why are zero defect, high-performance buildings not normally delivered?”

David Jacobs, PhD, CIH - A Healthy Homes Pioneer; Over 40 Years of Improving IEQ

This week we welcome David Jacobs for an interview about his pioneering career working toward making housing healthier for all. For over 40 years David has been a force for good in the healthy homes movement. It started early in his career as a research scientist at Georgia Tech and continues today at his current positions at the NCHH and as the Director, US Collaborating Center for Research and Training on Housing Related Disease and Injury, World Health Organization/Pan American Health Organization. From lead paint to gas stoves and everything in between David has been a tireless advocate for healthy housing. We look forward to his thoughts on accomplishments, current events and the future of healthy housing.
 
David E Jacobs, PhD, CIH is currently Chief Scientist at the National Center for Healthy Housing, where he recently completed a major study on indoor air quality in homes with gas stoves. He directs the US Collaborating Center for Healthy Housing Research and Training for the World Health Organization. He is also an adjunct associate professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health (Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Division). Jacobs holds degrees in Environmental Engineering, Science and Technology Policy, Environmental Health and Political Science. He is a licensed lead paint risk assessor and a board-certified industrial hygienist. He was a contributing author to the recently released Guidelines on Housing and Health from the World Health Organization. He helped launch the Healthy Homes Initiative in the US in 1999 with a report to Congress, where he has testified on several occasions (most recently in 2021). Dr. Jacobs has led research related to childhood lead poisoning prevention, lead exposure assessment and mitigation, healthy housing, asthma, green building design and policy development. He also was the principal author of the Guidelines for the Evaluation and Control of Lead Based Paint Hazards, the standard industry reference in the field. He was the principal author of the President’s Task Force report on childhood lead poisoning prevention in 2000. He previously served as director of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes from 1995-2004. He has over a hundred peer-reviewed papers and 20 book chapters or books, most of which are available here.

Joe Spurgeon, PhD - Surface Dust Samples, ERMI Scores and Assessing Mold Exposures

This week we welcome back Dr. Joe Spurgeon to talk about the use of surface dust sampling for assessing mold exposure. Many IEP’s are frustrated with the lack of consensus on how to take and interpret surface dust samples for mold. They are also frustrated with the misuse of ERMI scores to assess exposure. Dr. Spurgeon will review his work and discuss his methods. He also hopes our audience will poke and prod to help him improve his recommendations. In the past we have interviewed him about his book on surface sampling, air sampling for mold and sampling after wildfires. Check out the interviews here:
Episode 375
Episode 525
Episode 648
 
Joe Spurgeon, PhD has a multidisciplinary doctorate degree in Analytical Chemistry and Environmental Health from the University of Pittsburgh; and was a Certified Industrial Hygienist from 1993 – 2013. His career has included working as a research chemist on the NBS Lead-Paint Poisoning Program, directing the FAA’s Combustion Toxicology Laboratory, performing Health Assessments for CDC/ATSDR, implementing US EPA’s Laboratory Exposure Assessment Project, and working as a consultant specializing in microbial indoor air quality for US PHS. He has performed over 4,000 residential and commercial investigations involving water intrusions and microbial contaminants; has taught courses on mold investigations, sampling, and data interpretation methods; and has served as an expert witness in numerous mold cases. Articles from Dr. Spurgeon are available at www.bi-air.com. His books are available at http://expertonmold.com/

Roger Berry Founder & CEO – SUDOC | Brian Lester President of Indiana Mold Remediation – Mold Remediation, Can Spray Be The Way?

This week we welcome Brian Lester and Roger Berry for a discussion on mold remediation and cleaning products. Brian has been doing remediation for nearly 25 years and Roger is an entrepreneur and Founder of SUDOC, he also has a lengthy and fascinating history in world affairs. The Z-man is intrigued by the product they have developed and when the Z-man is takes notice of a cleaning product it’s a good bet there is something there. We’ll LEARN MORE today.
Brian Lester has been in the cleaning and restoration business since 1998 when he started as a carpet cleaner doing water extractions with a portable extraction machine. He has managed 1000s of drying jobs as well as countless mold remediation projects. He is currently the President of Indiana Mold Remediation and work with his brother and best friend providing remediation work to all of central Indiana.
Brian also  represents Dot cleaner as a product specialist having taken part in the design and implementation of the dot cleaning product directly into the remediation market. Dilute oxidation technology is new technology developed at Carnegie Mellon University. His friend Terry Collins is the inventor. The technology, which they refer to as the NT7 molecule is an oxidizing catalyst which mimics the action the takes places in the human body. They use this new technology because it reduces the chemical burden of remediation contractors.  Because Dot is a dry form product, their waste and shipping burden is markedly lower.
Roger Berry is a passionate and experienced CEO and investor in high-potential technology companies with a focus on sustainability. Two decades plus of experience in private equity, covering fundraising, team incubation, deal due diligence, sustainable technology development and ultimately as CEO for a series of technology companies, has prepared Roger for his current role in building a transformative sustainable chemistry company in Sudoc.
Roger has experience in analyzing and managing turnarounds and start-up ventures. Roger was a Partner with TEM Capital, an early-to-growth stage fund manager focused on clean energy and sustainable resources. On behalf of TEM, Roger served as CEO of two businesses including Clean Electricity Generation (CEG), a company with proprietary clean energy technology. Roger was Head of Group Funds and Investor Relations for Climate Change Capital, a fund manager with over $1.6 billion of assets. From 2000 to 2006, Roger was a Managing Partner and co-founder of Liberty Global Partners, an advisory and placement firm focused on emerging markets private equity. Liberty Global Partners raised significant commitments from institutional investors and led the creation of the Emerging Markets Private Equity Association.
Roger had formative experiences in the United States Congress and First Lady Hillary Clinton’s health care task force. He subsequently worked in international development and conflict resolution. Roger draws inspiration from the times he spent with historic figure Nelson Mandela and other leaders of South Africa’s transition to democracy. He first met President Mandela in 1993, before he became President, where he helped coordinate his testimony in front of the congressional International Affairs subcommittee on Africa. He subsequently went to work for the National Democratic Institute, living in Southern Africa and supporting the new leadership to establish key legislative processes. While in South Africa, he was also part of a team that facilitated discussions for the conflicted parties of Northern Ireland with the leadership of South Africa’s government including President Mandela. This event was credited as a helpful step in the process of achieving reconciliation in Northern Ireland.
Motivated by the impact of learning, Roger developed and co-teaches a course on private equity for the International Business Program at Tufts University Fletcher Graduate School. Roger serves on several Boards including the Managing Board of Aptima Ventures, the commercialization arm of Aptima Inc, a company that has done over $300 million of R&D on how technology and data can assess and enhance human performance for NASA, the US military and various agencies of health. Roger is the co-chair of the Harvard Alumni Committee for Cambridge, which is responsible for interviewing all of the city’s applicants to the college.
Roger is an honors graduate of Harvard University (1990) where he advanced to the number two position on the nationally ranked division one tennis team. He lives in Cambridge, MA with his wife Sonia Perez Villanueva, their three children Oscar, Alonso, and Alana, and their young beagle Millie.

Elliott Gall, PhD - Particle Mitigation Strategies; What Works?

This week we welcome Dr. Elliott Gall, Associate Professor at Portland State University to discuss some current research on particulate and gas phase pollutant mitigation. Particles are everywhere in indoor environments from skin cells to automobile exhaust to wildfires by-products. Particulate removal is also a big topic when it comes to the pandemic. What do we know about particle behavior and how well do various mitigation processes work? We will talk to Dr. Gall about what his and other research shows about this important IEQ topic.
 
Dr. Elliott Gall is an Associate Professor in the Mechanical and Materials Engineering Department in the Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science at Portland State University. Dr. Gall’s primary technical specialties are physics and chemistry of indoor air quality, heat and mass transfer phenomena in built environments, human exposure to air pollution, indoor environmental quality and sustainable buildings, building HVAC, and urban air quality.
 
Dr. Gall’s research and teaching interests center around developing new approaches that improve building sustainability through an understanding of the intersection of building energy use, indoor air quality, and occupant well-being. Specific research areas include: i) fundamental laboratory and field studies of indoor air pollutant transport and transformation, ii) air pollution exposure assessment through modeling and personal exposure studies, and iii) evaluation of building technology and design with respect to indoor environmental quality. 
 
LEARN MORE this week on IAQ Radio+.

Andrew K. Persily, PhD - National Institute for Standards & Tech - Flashback Friday

This week our engineer Jon “You Gotta Have” Faith helped us clean up, edit and add to a great show we did in May of 2010 with Dr. Andrew Persily of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Dr. Persily is currently a Fellow at NIST but at the time of this interview he was leading the indoor air quality and ventilation group. During this interview we talked about his time as the Steering Committee Chair of the ASHRAE Design Guide “Indoor Air Quality Guide- Best Practices for Design, Construction and Commissioning” a collaboration between ASHRAE, AIA, BOMA, SMACNA, EPA and the USGBC. We also discussed what NIST does, weatherization issues, ventilation and of course indoor air quality.
 
Dr. Andrew Persily has worked at NIST for four decades after earning his Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University. His research has focused on indoor air quality and ventilation in commercial and residential buildings, including the development and application of measurement techniques to evaluate airflow and indoor air quality performance and of multi-zone airflow and contaminant dispersal models. He has published more than 300 journal articles, conference papers and NIST reports. Dr. Persily was a vice-president of ASHRAE from 2007 to 2009, and is past chair of ASHRAE Standard 62.1 (Ventilation for Acceptable Indoor Air Quality) and Standard 189.1 (Design of High-Performance Green Buildings). He is a Fellow of ASHRAE, ASTM and ISIAQ, and recipient of the NIST Bronze, Silver and Gold medals.

Andrew K. Persily, PhD - Understanding Indoor CO2, Building Ventilation and Their Affects on IEQ

This week we welcome back Dr. Andrew Persily a Fellow at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for a discussion on indoor CO2, building ventilation and CO2 impact on occupants. We'll also discuss airborne infectious disease transmission and more. Dr. Persily has worked at NIST for four decades after earning his Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University. His research has focused on indoor air quality and ventilation in commercial and residential buildings, including the development and application of measurement techniques to evaluate airflow and indoor air quality performance and of multi-zone airflow and contaminant dispersal models. He has published more than 300 journal articles, conference papers and NIST reports. Dr. Persily was a vice-president of ASHRAE from 2007 to 2009, and is past chair of ASHRAE Standard 62.1 (Ventilation for Acceptable Indoor Air Quality) and Standard 189.1 (Design of High-Performance Green Buildings). He is a Fellow of ASHRAE, ASTM and ISIAQ, and recipient of the NIST Bronze, Silver and Gold medals.
 
LEARN MORE this week on IAQ Radio+.

Don Fugler - IEQ Pioneers

This week we welcome Don Fugler for the second show in our series with the founding fathers and pioneers of today's indoor environmental quality industry. During our first show J. David Miller, PhD mentioned how important Don was during the early research projects that led to solutions for common IEQ problems. This week we look forward to talking with Don about his contributions to our current understanding of indoor environments and his thoughts on what the future holds.
 
Don Fugler spent 25 years conducting research projects for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), in the areas of residential energy use, ventilation, and indoor air quality. Between 1985 and 2010, he managed over 100 research projects. During that period, he published CMHC research reports; wrote and distributed summaries in Research Highlights and About Your House documents and lectured at conferences and meetings. Since 2011, Don’s consulting work has addressed indoor air quality and energy issues for federal departments, NGOs, and individuals. He is active on CSA standards committees (carbon monoxide sensors, residential depressurization) and CGSB (radon). He helped initiate ROCIS (rocis.org) and the Low Cost Monitoring Project through program design and development of the monitoring process participants would follow. He currently concentrates on the house-based factors, such as the entry rate of outdoor pollutants, the distribution of pollutants within the dwelling, the activities within the house that create particles, and the means of reducing the concentrations of particles and other measured pollutants. LEARN MORE this week on IAQ Radio+.