Fifteenth RECLAIM webinar - Improving Life in Cities

Prof. Maria de Fatima Andrade is a full professor at the Atmospheric Sciences Department in the University of São Paulo. She coordinates the “Laboratory for Analysis of Atmospheric Process (LAPAt)”. She has a PhD in Physics and has been working with atmospheric aerosols and air quality modeling for more than 30 years. Her projects are related to the description of emission, transformation, and removal process of atmospheric constituents. She has been involved in many projects related to air quality in urban areas of Brazil, mainly São Paulo Metropolitan Area. Her research has contributed on the evaluation of the emission factors from vehicular sources and ozone and secondary particles formation, and air quality modeling. Her research is interdisciplinary involving urban air pollution and health impacts, transport of pollutants and new technologies for aerosol measurements. She has coordinated projects with national and international collaboration, including environmental agencies. One of the projects involves the use of the Green Infrastructure to mitigate air pollution and the impact of climate change scenarios on health in Southeast of Brazil. She has advised more than 35 graduation students and published over 150 journal articles. She is currently an associate editor of the journal Urban Climate. She is involved in the establishment of a Greenhouse gases network measurement in São Paulo City with FAPESP funding, involving many research groups. Since December 2020, she is member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. Presently she is also member of the WMO/GAW GURME Science Advisory Group.

Rene Lindsay Sommer comes from Denmark where he trained as an architect and urban planner. He worked with the City of Copenhagen for nearly 10 years, most of which he spent as the project manager and subsequently director of the Copenhagen Climate Resilient Neighbourhood project – Klimakvarter – a project demonstrating new approaches to climate adaptation which included using green infrastructure to make streets both beautiful and resilient. After Klimakvarter he worked as an advisor, integrating the “added value” approach into the citywide Cloudburst Management Programme, but when an opportunity arose to take a sabbatical year in Scotland. That year has quickly turned into 6 years and he’s shifted to working mainly in Active Travel, first as a consultant and most recently as an urban designer where he’s heavily involved on the prestigious George Street design project in the heart of Edinburgh`s World Heritage site.