Dr. J. Jason West

J. Jason West is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he performs interdisciplinary research addressing air pollution and climate change, by using models of atmospheric chemistry and transport, and tools for quantitative policy analysis.  Dr. West has worked as a Research Scientist at Princeton University, and prior to that, at the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC under a fellowship from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  He has a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University, earned jointly between Civil & Environmental Engineering and Engineering & Public Policy, an M.Phil. in Environment & Development from the University of Cambridge, an M.S. from Carnegie Mellon, and a B.S. in Civil & Environmental Engineering from Duke University.

Dr. West is interested broadly in the relationships between air pollution and climate change, and their relevance for environmental science and policy.  Using computer models, Dr. West is currently exploring the effects of changes in emissions on global air quality, the international transport and health impacts of air pollutants (focusing on ozone and particulate matter), and the radiative forcing of climate.  As a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a visiting scientist at the Mexican National Institute of Ecology, Dr. West conducted computer modeling of air pollution and analyzed the integrated mitigation of greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions in Mexico City.  Recently, Dr. West’s research has emphasized methane as an important greenhouse gas that also reacts in the atmosphere to contribute to ozone air pollution, showing that the global benefits of reduced ozone and avoided premature human mortalities exceed the costs of a 20% reduction in global anthropogenic methane emissions. 

Current CV (PDF)