2025 Tire Emissions Research Conference Speakers

Ludwig Schubert is a university assistant and research engineer, working at the University of Technology Graz and at AVL List GmbH. During his Bachelors he was already working on brake disc development. He achieved his MSc at the University of Technology Graz in 2022, dealing with the generation and measurement of non-exhaust emission on an indoor drum test bed. Since 2023 he is doing his PhD on tire wear and tire wear particulate emissions generated in a laboratory environment. The focus is on the development of a reproducible test bench method for the measurement of tire particulate emissions in the size range below 10 micrometers using different aerosol measurement devices.

Elodie Passeport is an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers University since January 2024. Previously, Dr. Passeport was an associate professor in Civil & Chemical Engineering at the University of Toronto, and Tier II Canada Research Chair in Environmental Engineering and Stable Isotopes. Her research focuses on environmental remediation. Her group studies the fate and removal of contaminants in aquatic environments. In 2020, Elodie Passeport received the Ontario Early Researcher Award and the Early Career Teaching Award from the University of Toronto Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering.

Dr. Gayathri Srinivasan is a distinguished scientist who received her PhD in Microbiology from The Ohio State University in 2004, where she contributed to the discovery of the 22nd amino acid, Pyrrolysine (2002). She first came to MIT as an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow in Prof. Tom Rajbhandary’s lab, where her research focused on understanding protein synthesis mechanisms in Archaea.

Dr. Srinivasan subsequently moved into the business development and technology licensing space, serving in MIT’s Technology Licensing Office, where she helped commercialize technologies in medical devices and alternative energies. She then moved to UMass Medical School’s Office of Technology Management in 2009 and to Emory University in Atlanta in 2014 as the Director of Public and Private Partnerships for the Woodruff Health Sciences Center. In 2019, Dr. Srinivasan joined Emory’s Office of Corporate Relations as Executive Director, and in 2021, she led the Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations.

Ed Terrill has received his BS in Chemistry from Ursinus College and his PhD in Polymer Science from The University of Akron.  He retired as a Research Fellow at Akron Rubber Development Laboratory (ARDL).  His professional experience includes 40 years in the rubber industry.  Prior to joining ARDL he worked for The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company and E I DuPont deNemours & Co.  His research interests include rubber compounding, and testing.

Chris Griffiths is Professor of Primary Care at the Nuffield Department of Primary Health Care Sciences at the University of Oxford, and Queen Mary University of London. He is Co-Director of the Centre for Respiratory Research Innovation and Impact.

Chris is a primary care physician with an interest in respiratory health, in particular health impacts of air pollution. He leads the CHILL cohort evaluating the impacts of London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone and is chief investigator of the HEI-funded IONA study, evaluating impacts of non-tailpipe emissions on adults with asthma.

With Greg Evans (Toronto) and Ian Mudway (London) he leads NEXUS: a new international transdisciplinary partnership addressing health impacts of non-tailpipe pollution.

Dr. Ellen K. Mantus is the Director of Science at the Health Effects Institute (HEI). She oversees the Environment and Health program that primarily focuses on the relationship between air pollution exposures and health. In that role, she works with the Research and Review Committees and HEI staff to identify important research topics, develop research proposals, review research applications, oversee funded research, and review investigator reports. Previously, she was a Scholar and Director of the Chemical Sciences Roundtable on the Board on Chemical Sciences and Technology of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (National Academies) where she served as the study director on more than 20 National Academies studies. As a study director, she worked closely with diverse National Academies committees to assess the underlying science and ensure successful completion of the committee reports. In recognition of her achievements at the National Academies, she was awarded the National Academies Distinguished Service Award in 2008.

Dr. Elena Craft is President of the Health Effects Institute (HEI), an independent research organization dedicated to advancing high-quality, impartial science on the health effects of air pollution. With a deep background in environmental health and toxicology, Dr. Craft leads HEI’s strategic efforts to inform air quality policy through evidence-based research — including critical work on emissions from transportation sources such as cars, trucks, and non-road engines. Under her leadership, HEI provides globally relevant science to guide public and private sector decisions in both developed and developing countries. Dr. Craft holds academic appointments at the University of Texas Health Science Center and Texas A&M University and is a Kinder Fellow at Rice University. She earned her Ph.D. from Duke University, a M.S. in toxicology from North Carolina State University, and a B.S. in biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is also a Fellow of the Collegium Ramazzini.

Greg Evans, P.Eng., Ph.D., FAAAS, FCAE, FCEEA is a Professor of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry and the Director of the Southern Ontario Centre for Atmospheric Aerosol Research. His research examines the impacts of air pollution on the environment, climate and human health.  He is also the founding Director of the Institute for Studies of Transdisciplinary Engineering Education and Practice, a new Department that focusses on the instruction, scholarship, and applications or engineering communication, leadership, entrepreneurship, and sociotechnical thinking.

Prof. Evans has received numerous recognitions for his contributions through research including the 2021 NSERC Brockhouse Canada Prize for Interdisciplinary Research and the 2022 CIC Environment Division Research and Development Dima Award. He is also a 3M National Teaching Fellow, member of the UofT President’s Teaching Academy, and has received numerous other recognitions for his excellence in teaching including the Engineers Canada Medal for Distinction in Engineering Education and the Ontario Colleges and Universities Faculty Association Teaching Award.

He is currently executing a study of non-tailpipe emissions from vehicle brakes and tires funded by the US Health Effects Institute and pursuing research relating to aircraft emissions, air quality on public transit,  and the health impacts of wildfires.

Kathrin Müller received her Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Chemistry in 2018 and her Master of Science degree in Bioanalytical Chemistry and Pharmaceutical Analysis in 2019 at Hochschule Fresenius University of Applied Sciences in Idstein, Germany. During her studies she worked at SGS Institut Fresenius in Taunusstein, Germany and after her master studies, she started working at the Institute for Analytical Research (IFAR) in Idstein, Germany. Since, 2020 she is a PhD student at Hochschule Fresenius University of Applied Sciences in Idstein, Germany and her research focuses on environmental and analytical chemistry in the context of tire wear emissions.

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.

Kosuke Tanaka is a researcher at the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Japan. His research focuses on micro- and nanoplastic pollution, including the quantitative analysis and investigation of their environmental behavior.

The presenting author Dr. Meibo He is a Research Fellow at the NUS Environmental Research Institute (NERI), National University of Singapore (NUS). She obtained her Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the NUS in 2023. Her research focuses on the analysis of micro-/nanoplastics and tire wear particles in environmental samples. She has been actively involved in the “Recycled Waste Plastic on Roads for Circular Economy” project, where she investigates the environmental risks and analytical characterization of water quality including microplastics, tires and road particles. Currently, her work emphasizes the detection and identification of tire wear particles in road-related matrices. With a strong background in environmental engineering and expertise in microplastic analysis, she applies advanced spectroscopic and microscopic techniques to examine both the physical and chemical properties of tire-derived particles in road environments.

Melis Seren Çelenlioglu is a PhD researcher in Environmental Physics at the Milano University with a project on non-exhaust emissions (NEE) from vehicles. Her research focuses on developing new experimental approaches for the NEE collection and characterization. She has experience in out-door, laboratory and dyno testing and she is currently involved in national and international projects dealing with NEE emissions.

Carlos is the Director of Applications Engineering for LINK. He develops new features and systems based on data and experimentation, emphasizing non-exhaust emissions and Hardware-in-the-Loop. Carlos obtained his bachelor’s degree in Production Engineering from EAFIT University-Colombia (in association with Aachen University and Ruhr University Bochum) and a Six Sigma Black Belt certification.
He is active on several committees related to braking systems for onroad and railway, and on UNECE task forces for non-exhaust brake emissions and tire abrasion. Carlos is the LINK liaison to the California Air Resources Board and the U.S. EPA.

Dr. Aaron Specht is an Assistant Professor in the School of Health Sciences. He received his B.S. from Purdue in Honors Physics and Ph.D. from Purdue in Medical and Health Physics. He completed postdoctoral training at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health where he remains active as part of their Trace Metals Laboratory utilizing his x-ray fluorescence devices. His research focuses on the development, application, and understanding of exposure assessment for elemental and radiation exposures in environmental and occupational health studies. He has developed instrumentation capable of in-field or in-lab measures that utilize a non-destructive, non-invasive, and cost-effective elemental quantification method using x-ray fluorescence. This includes everything from measuring nail, bone, or blood to determine exposure to a human or in animal studies to measuring soil, ash, or air filters to determine ongoing exposures at particular sites. He has many interesting collaborative projects ranging from typical studies in hospital settings around the globe to measuring condors on the cliffs of the Grand Canyon. Feel free to email him with any questions, lab opportunities, or collaborative efforts.

Dr. Chunrong Jia is a professor of environmental health at the School of Public Health, the University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee, USA. His research interests include air pollution and human health, healthy homes, and environmental sampling and analysis techniques. He now leads the Tennessee Office for EPA’s Region 4 Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Center (TCTAC).

Salahuddin Setu joined the AIRFlowS Lab at Virginia Tech in 2024 as a Ph.D. student in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He received his B.S. in Civil Engineering from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Bangladesh. Currently, his research is centered on the multiscale dynamic assessment of airborne microplastic emissions from tire wear particles. As part of this work, he aims to develop a comprehensive airborne tire wear emission inventory and subsequently construct a city-scale model to evaluate tire-related particulate emissions.

Dr Luke Parker is a Senior Scientist at TNO, the Dutch Institute for Applied Natural Sciences Research. He did his PhD at Cardiff University in the group of Prof. Graham Hutchings investigating the design of novel nanoalloy catalysts for hydrogen production through ammonia decomposition. Afterwards he moved to Utrecht University and the group of Prof. Bert Weckhuysen where he worked as a postdoc focusing on on nanomaterial synthesis and characterization using micro-spectroscopic methods such as electron microscopy and confocal fluorescence microscopy. In August 2021, he moved to TNO where he currently leads research into microplastics with the aims of improving measurement and detection techniques, understanding their formation and developing mitigation strategies.

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. He joined his current position in 2025.

Kei Nakayama is currently an Assistant Professor at the Center for Marine Environmental Studies (CMES), Ehime University, Japan.

Dr. Nakayama received his Ph.D. in Agriculture from Kyushu University in 2003.
Before joining Ehime University in 2006, he worked as a research fellow at the City University of Hong Kong from 2005 to 2006, and as a postdoc at CMES, Ehime University from 2003 to 2005.

He specializes in environmental toxicology and has published extensively on the toxicity assessment of chemical substances in fish. Recently, he has been particularly interested in the effects of microplastics, including tire particles, on fish, with a focus on immunotoxicity and hematotoxicity.

Prof. Thorsten Reemtsma is a chemist and Head of the Department of Environmental Analytical Chemistry at the UFZ in Leipzig. He is also Professor of Analytical Chemistry at the University of Leipzig. His research focuses on the development of analytical techniques for trace contaminants in water, soils and biota, on tracking trace substances in natural and technical systems and on understanding transformation processes. Thorsten Reemtsma is currently Chair of the Division of Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology at the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker – the German Chemical Society (GDCh) and Member of the Board of the German Water Chemistry Society.

Sefine Oksal Kilinc is a PhD candidate in Ecology and Ecotoxicology at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, specializing in environmental risk assessment. Her research explores the effects of aged tire abrasion on terrestrial ecosystems, utilizing C. elegans as a model organism, while also investigating chemical leaching and its interactions with soil and biological systems. With an academic foundation that includes a B.Sc. in Life Sciences with a specialization in Ecology and an M.Sc. in Organismic Biology and Evolution, she has contributed to studies on microplastic contamination, pollutant adsorption, and chemical leaching. She has held roles as a lecturer, guest researcher, and project assistant across Berlin, Vienna, Turkey, and Potsdam, including work in water purification research and collaborations with multiple universities and research institutions across Germany. As an Avicenna fellow, she continues to advance environmental research, integrating her expertise in research management and communication to support sustainability and ecological safety.

Kate Rowley is a final-year PhD student at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, funded by the NERC CENTA Doctoral Training Partnership. Her research focuses on developing novel methods for the analysis and quantification of tyre particles from environmental samples, as well as understanding their transport via atmospheric deposition in the urban environment. Kate has been BRIDGE-funded to support collaborative work with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA, where she conducted her laboratory and pyrolysis GC-MS research at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Centre. Her presentation at the Tyre Emissions Research Conference will focus on the three main research papers from her PhD.

Dr. Tim Barber is a Technical Director with over 30 years of experience in environmental chemistry, fate and transport modeling, and risk assessment. He is a leading researcher in the characterization of tire and road wear particles (TRWP) in the environment. As Study Director for the World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s Tire Industry Project, Dr. Barber has led multi-year investigations to quantify TRWP in surface water, sediment, road dust, soil, and stormwater across global sites including the Seine River, Osaka Bay, and Baltimore, Maryland. His work focuses on developing and refining analytical methods for detecting natural and synthetic rubber particles using pyrolysis-GC/MS and particulate zinc analysis. Dr. Barber’s research provides critical data on the environmental occurrence and behavior of TRWP, supporting global efforts to assess potential risks and informing mitigation strategies. He regularly publishes and presents his findings in peer-reviewed journals and at international scientific conferences.

Bonnie Stuck has a B.A. in Chemistry from Capital University of Columbus, Ohio.  She has 48 years of experience in the rubber and plastics industries. She is currently President Emeritus of Akron Rubber Development Laboratory. She served 7 years as President/Senior Technical Advisor.  Her tire related experience includes time at B.F.Goodrich, Uniroyal Goodrich, Bridgestone Firestone, Kumho,  and Continental/General Tire. She has worked on all of the rubber components in tires with a concentration in tread compounding.  Her tire experience also includes work in tire textiles; nylon, polyester, steal cord, aramid and fiberglass. She has worked on passenger, high performance, racing, OTR, truck and airplane tires (space shuttle). She has continued her work with tire related materials at Akron Rubber Development Laboratory. She also worked as Technical Director for Sovereign Chemical and as Senior Vice President of Technical/Operations of Chem Technologies.  She has published numerous technical papers, has given lectures on rubber compounding and testing at Capital University, the University of Michigan, the University of Akron and for the Rubber Division of American Chemical Society.  She is holder of four patents. Bonnie, lives near Hartville, Ohio with her husband, Richard Stuck and her black lab, Mollie. She has two grown married children and four grandchildren who live nearby.  Her hobbies include playing the trumpet, the piano and traveling.

Bogdan Muresan is associate professor at the Gustave Eiffel University (Environment Planning, Safety et Eco-design – laboratory) specializing in non-exhaust emissions and their environmental fate. Trained as a biogeochemist, his research aims to anticipate and reduce the ecosystem and health effects of unregulated pollutant emissions from the transport sector. To do this, he investigated several research fields (biogeochemistry, ecotoxicology, tribology, civil engineering) and environmental compartments (soil, water, atmosphere, living organisms). The data obtained describe the mechanisms of complexity and the chains of processes that link pollutant emissions to effects. Another important aspect of his research is the development of non-exhaust emission reduction strategies and tools through collaborations with academic organizations and socio-economic actors: including on-road emission measuring platforms, low-cost sensors, laboratory-scale analytical methodologies, etc. Bogdan Muresan has co-authored over 40 international articles, supervised 10 diploma theses and 13 master’s or engineering equivalent internships, and participated in 25 national and 3 international projects.

Dr. Ani Jayakaran is a professor and extension specialist with Washington State University and an affiliate faculty member of the Department of Biological Systems Engineering and the School of the Environment. He leads the Green Stormwater Infrastructure Lab at WSU’s Puyallup Research and Extension Center. Ani provides extension and research strategies to manage water resources using GSI principles and improve current engineering designs through applied research.

Nat Scholz is a marine conservation biologist.  His graduate training spanned Boston University’s marine program in Woods Hole (masters) and marine zoology at the University of Washington (doctoral), followed by a postdoctoral position with the National Academy of Sciences (National Research Council).   In 1999, he joined NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle, becoming the lead for the Ecotoxicology Program in 2004.  For the past 25 years, he has spearheaded the Center’s research on urban stormwater threats to Pacific salmon conservation.  This includes extensive field, laboratory, and modeling investigations into a severe mortality syndrome affecting coho salmon in restored urban streams.  These different lines of evidence laid the groundwork for the eventual discovery of 6PPD-quinone as the cause of the syndrome.  He has also published widely on pollution threats to coastal, estuarine, and open-ocean habitats.  He retired from federal service in May of 2025.

Dr. Nicholas Chartres is a Senior Research Fellow at The University of Sydney where he studies the commercial determinants of health, focusing on chemicals, nutrition and public health. He recently launched the Center to End Corporate Harm at the University of California, San Francisco. Nicholas is a research methodologist specializing in the conduct of environmental health and nutrition systematic reviews. He works with national and international organizations and agencies, including the World Health Organization, to conduct reviews of the evidence and develop guidelines using empirically based methods to ensure improved consistency, greater transparency, and reduced bias when evaluating the scientific evidence and formulating recommendations.

Ms. Panko is a Principal Scientist and Senior Vice President at the consulting firm ToxStrategies where she leads the Exposure Sciences Practice.  Shas more than 35 years of experience conducting and managing a wide variety of occupational, environmental, and consumer health risk assessments and is a Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIH). In her Practice, Ms. Panko leads teams that are focused on evaluating chemical risks from industrial, commercial, and consumer products across their lifecycles, both within the context of various regulatory programs and voluntary initiatives. During her career, Ms. Panko has investigated the potential for human and ecological health risks associated with non-exhaust emissions, in particular tire and road wear particles.

Jes Vollertsen is a Professor of Environmental Engineering at Aalborg University, Denmark. His background is biological and chemical processes and pollutants in urban technical waters, mainly stormwater treatment systems and sewer systems. His research focus is on anthropogenic pollution where he the later years has worked on microplastics, here among tire wear particles. The work targets all types of matrixes, e.g. water, wastewater, sludge, biosolids, sediments, soil, biota, food, air, etcetera. His goal is to quantify sources and occurrence of environmental microplastics and address the processes behind mitigation technologies. He addresses aspects of the physical, chemical, and biological breakdown of microplastics in the environment.

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.