On May 24, Kai Wilmot successfully defended his dissertation titled “Quantifying the Impact of Wildfires on Air Quality in Western United States Urban Centers” which is the culmination of his three years at the University of Utah. The dissertation consists of three separate manuscripts:
- “Expanding number of Western US urban centers face declining summertime air quality due to enhanced wildland fire activity” published in Environmental Research Letters (https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abf966#:~:text=Conclusions,Northwest%20presenting%20particularly%20robust%20trends)
- “Wildfire activity is driving summertime air quality degradation across the Western US: A model-based attribution to smoke source regions” under review in Environmental Research Letters
- “Wildfire plumes in the Western US are reaching greater heights and injecting more aerosols aloft as wildfire activity intensifies” accepted for publication in Scientific Reports
In addition to successfully defending his dissertation, Kai was awarded the Fukuta Award for an outstanding graduate student publication, which was awarded for his paper titled “Expanding number of Western US urban centers face declining summertime air quality due to enhanced wildland fire activity.” Kai recently accepted a postdoc position at the University of Utah and will be investigating urban carbon dioxide enhancements using satellite observations and Lagrangian atmospheric transport models for the next year and a half.
Congratulations Dr. Wilmot!