2026 Tire Emissions Research Conference

Degrees and certifications: Ph.D. in Pharmacology, University of Iowa; M.S. in Biochemistry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; B.A. in Biology, Knox College; NIH Postdoctoral Fellow, Michigan State University; Retired Diplomate’ American Board of Toxicology, Fellow Collegium Ramazzini.

Responsibilities included directing research into the toxic and carcinogenic potential of hundreds of chemicals, mixtures and physical agents nominated for study by the NTP; development of strategies for high throughput screening in toxicological testing termed “Toxicology in the 21st Century”; developing methods for systematic reviews for environmental contaminants; oversight of listings in the NTP Report on Carcinogens and Monographs from the Office of Health Assessment and Translation, and assessing dose response modeling of gene expression changes as a surrogate for PODs of phenotypic responses in in vivo toxicology and carcinogenesis studies. Service on advisory committees for NASEM, FDA, WHO, IARC and past member of EPA SAP.

Dr. Benoît J.D. Ferrari obtained his PhD in Ecotoxicology from the University of Lorraine (Metz, France) in 2000. After several years at the University of Geneva (Geneva, CH) and Inrae (formerly Cemagref/Irstea, Lyon, France), he joined the Ecotox Centre in October 2013 as group leader of the Soil and Sediment Ecotoxicology group at EPFL (Lausanne, CH). On 1 September 2019, he became interim director of the Ecotox Centre. In July 2021, he was appointed as the new director of the Ecotox Centre, while continuing to lead the Soil and Sediment ecotoxicology group. His main areas of interest are the ecodynamic of contaminants and their effects at different levels of biological organisation. In particular, he is involved in 1) the development of exposure- and effect-based tools to assess chemical stress, 2) the integration of such tools into laboratory- and field-based approaches to assess ecosystem quality, and 3) the transfer of such tools and approaches to end-users. See https://www.ecotoxcentre.ch/

Roy Harrison is Queen Elizabeth II Birmingham Centenary Professor of Environmental Health at the University of Birmingham, UK. His research interests are in air pollution, especially airborne particulate matter.  These extend from emissions, through atmospheric transformations to personal exposure and effects upon human health.  Recent research has focussed especially on China (Beijing), India (Delhi) and the United Kingdom.  He has also been heavily engaged at the science/policy interface as a member of several government technical advisory groups for the Department of Health and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in the U.K. including past membership of Defra’s Science Advisory Council, and current membership of Defra’s Air Quality Expert Group and the Dept. of Health Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants.  He was a contributor to the World Health Organization Global Air Quality Guidelines (2005) and the Guidelines for Quality of Indoor Air (2010). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (the UK Academy of Sciences) in 2017.  He is author of over 700 papers in the peer-reviewed literature, and is listed by Web of Science as a Highly Cited Researcher with an H-index of 110.

Dr. Kyoshiro Hiki is a lecturer at the University of Tokyo. He received his PhD from the University of Tokyo in 2016 and subsequently worked at the National Institute for Environmental Studies as a postdoctoral fellow and senior researcher. His research interests include ecotoxicology and ecological risk assessment, with a focus on sediment contamination, urban runoff, and the application of molecular technologies. Following his master’s work, he has evaluated the toxicity of road dust and road runoff-related chemicals on aquatic and benthic organisms. Since the discovery of 6PPD-quinone as the causative agent for acute die-offs of coho salmon, he has further investigated the toxicity of 6PPD, 6PPD-quinone, and related chemicals to aquatic organisms, while also pursuing the underlying mechanisms of 6PPD-quinone toxicity.

Cornelia Lex is an associate Professor at the Institute of Automotive Engineering at Graz University of Technology. She received her PhD from Graz University of Technology in 2015 and holds a habilitation (Venia docendi) in the field of Automotive Engineering. At Graz University of Technology, she heads the research group on vehicle dynamics and tires. Accordingly, her research interests include vehicle motion state estimation (side-slip angle and tire-road friction estimation) on one hand, and tire modelling, testing and tire particle emissions on the other hand. With regard to tire particle emissions, her research team and her investigate reproducible test bench procedures that generate tire wear rates that are realistic compared to on-road measurements, while measuring tire particle emissions (PM 2.5, PM 10, solid and total particle number) at the same time. Another related research field is the modelling of tire wear mechanisms to simulate the tire wear rate.

Dr. Wataru Naito is currently a team leader of Integrated Research Center for Nature Positive Technology at National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Japan. Currently, his research activities include developing methods for obtaining missing data for environmental risk assessment/management and promoting pragmatic risk assessment for contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) such as microplastics. He has served on a variety of expert advisory committees related environmental risk-related issues for central and local governments and been a member the Working Party on Exposure Assessment (WPEA) in OECD since the noughties. Dr. Naito received a BS in Environmental Science from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), a MA and PhD in Materials Science and Chemical Engineering from Yokohama National University.

Dr Cassandra Rauert is an established environmental health scientist, with a career divided between working within government and academia. She is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences (QAEHS) at the University of Queensland, Australia. Her research focusses on developing new methods for monitoring human and environmental exposure to microplastics with a special focus on tyre wear and their associated chemicals. She has published the first Australian environmental data on these pollutants and works closely with local governments to understand the fate and transport of both tyre wear and the associated chemicals within an Australian context. 

Dr. Rødland is researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA). Dr. Rødland is a marine biologist (MSc) and environmental chemist (PhD), and has been working on road-related pollution topics for more than 12 years. She has a 7 year background from the Norwegian Public Roads Administration, before doing her PhD work on the analysis of tire-road wear particles using PYR-GC/MS at NIVA and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU). Dr. Rødland’s current research focuses the occurrence and fate of tire-road wear particles and related chemicals in the environment, including method improvements for identification and quantification, and evaluating different treatment options for road and tunnel runoff.

Jack Spengler is the Akira Yamaguchi Professor of Environmental Health and Human Habitation, and Co-Director of the JPB Environmental Health Fellowship Program at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Current research focuses on health and the built environment and the wellbeing benefitsof exposure to Nature. In addition, his team works on extereme heat mitigation strategies in ten US cities the Smart Surfaces Coalition.

Dr. How Yong Ng is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, National University of Singapore (NUS) and a Changjiang Scholar Professor at the Beijing Normal University at Zhuhai. He was the Director of NUS Environmental Research Institute and the Director of the Sembcorp-NUS Corporate Laboratory.

Professor Ng’s core research interest is in sustainable water management, focusing on biological treatment technologies, membrane bioreactor and microbial electrochemical sensor for water reuse and resource recovery. He has contributed to more than 450 publications in refereed international journals and conference papers. He invented the I2BioS – an integrated intelligent bio-sensor that provides real-time water toxicity and quality monitoring, which is currently being commercialised through EnvironSens Pte Ltd, a NUS spinoff company. He also serves as an Advisor to WaterROAM Pte Ltd, a NUS startup and a social enterprise that provides durable and affordable water filters designed for humanitarian use.

Professor Ng is a Fellow of the Academy of Engineering Singapore, a Fellow of the International Water Association (IWA) and a Distinguished Member of the American Council of Environmental Engineers and Scientists. He serves as an Associate Editor of Water Research and an Editor of the Water Reuse. He is also the Chair of of the Management Committee of the IWA Specialist Group on Membrane Technology and the immediate past president of the Environmental Engineering Society of Singapore. He has received many outstanding awards including the 2014 IWA Pacific Project Innovation Award, 2020 Institute of Engineering Singapore Prestigious Engineering Achievement Award, 2020 National University of Singapore Engineering Leadership Award, etc.