Subject: PSU Sustainability: Presentation on Urban Environment - May 9, 11-12pm, Smith 238

"Feedback Mechanisms in the Urban Environment: How do heat & air quality
episodes and public advisories impact human behavior...and vice versa?"

Presenter: Dr. David Sailor, Associate Professor, Mechanical and Materials
Engineering, Portland State University.

Date: Friday, May 9th
Time: 11:00 - 12:00pm with refreshments served afterwards
Place: Smith Center, Room 238

This presentation will start with a background into the causes, effects, and
potential for mitigation of the urban heat island. It will then highlight
results from an NSF-funded project that seeks to understand the feedback
mechanisms in the urban environment. Specifically, this project explores the
extent to which people modify their behavior in response to excessive heat,
poor air quality, and public advisories... and the extent to which such
behavior change can impact heat and air quality episodes through changes in
emissions of pollutants and waste heat.

Dr. Sailor is an expert in urban climates and how they~Rre affected by
buildings, energy consumption, and human activity. His research is in the
general area of Energy and the Environment. In recent years the focus of his
work has been on modeling the urban climate, with applications in air
quality, building energy consumption, human health, and climate change.
Please see his website for details of ongoing projects:
http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~sailor/Index.htm