Gustavo A. Olivares

Air pollution is a very personal issue to me. I was born in Santiago (Chile) in the early ’70s so I have very vivid memories of the air pollution events in the ’80s and ’90s (I also have very vivid memories about other events but I won’t go into that here). The view of the snow-capped Andes in Santiago is breathtaking. Unfortunately, during significant periods in autumn and winter, the polluted air of the city obscures the view of the mountains … and I love my mountains!. So, my main motivation to understand the air is so that everyone, everywhere can see their mountains.

So, after working on modelling ion chromatographic processes for my Engineering degree, I worked on modelling atmospheric dispersion of sulfur from copper smelters for my MSc. Then moved to Sweden to work with urban aerosols where I was much more involved with measurements than modelling. After that I moved to New Zealand where I’ve been since 2007 working on all areas of air quality research, including dispersion modelling, measurement campaign design, instrument development and lately moving into data science, indoor air quality and data management.