Jenna Ditto, Postdoctoral Researcher
Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry
University of Toronto

Pollutant Transport Across the Building Envelope: Emissions, Chemistry, and Impacts on Indoor and Outdoor Air Quality

The transport of pollutants across the building envelope plays a critical role in determining both indoor and outdoor air quality. Gas- and aerosol-phase organic compounds of outdoor origin may enter homes through doors, windows, and building cracks, and these intruding species and their chemical transformation products are important to consider for human
exposure. Conversely, organic compounds of indoor origin are vented outdoors, and contribute to urban air pollution. Indoor and outdoor air are fundamentally interconnected and their relationship is critical for human and environmental health. However, we still face many uncertainties about the magnitude and nature of these dynamic indoor-outdoor pollutant fluxes,
competing chemical transformations in variable environmental conditions, and the ultimate fate and impacts of these primary emissions and secondary reaction products. 

In this talk, I will focus on two case studies that explore the interconnection between indoor and outdoor air systems in terms of primary emissions and secondary multiphase chemistry. I will discuss the combination of offline and online mass spectrometry techniques to probe detailed chemical composition and temporal trends in evolving complex mixtures across
gas and aerosol phases, including: (1) leveraging high resolution tandem mass spectrometry to investigate chemical transformations in aging boreal wildfire smoke and implications for outdoor and indoor smoke exposure in downwind communities, and (2) integrating high temporal resolution and high chemical resolution mass spectrometry to understand functionalized
emissions from food cooking and evaluate their impacts on indoor air and urban outdoor air quality.

Biosketch:
Jenna Ditto is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto, working jointly in the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Department of Chemistry. Her research focuses on characterizing the emissions and chemical transformations of major sources of indoor air pollutants, including cooking and smoking. She earned her Ph.D. from Yale University in 2020,
where she developed and implemented non-targeted tandem mass spectrometry methods to investigate the emissions, transformations, and properties of functionalized gas- and aerosolphase organic compounds at a range of ambient field sites in the U.S. and Canada.

Jenna Ditto, Postdoctoral Researcher
Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry
University of Toronto

Pollutant Transport Across the Building Envelope: Emissions, Chemistry, and Impacts on Indoor and Outdoor Air Quality

The transport of pollutants across the building envelope plays a critical role in determining both indoor and outdoor air quality. Gas- and aerosol-phase organic compounds of outdoor origin may enter homes through doors, windows, and building cracks, and these intruding species and their chemical transformation products are important to consider for human
exposure. Conversely, organic compounds of indoor origin are vented outdoors, and contribute to urban air pollution. Indoor and outdoor air are fundamentally interconnected and their relationship is critical for human and environmental health. However, we still face many uncertainties about the magnitude and nature of these dynamic indoor-outdoor pollutant fluxes,
competing chemical transformations in variable environmental conditions, and the ultimate fate and impacts of these primary emissions and secondary reaction products. 

In this talk, I will focus on two case studies that explore the interconnection between indoor and outdoor air systems in terms of primary emissions and secondary multiphase chemistry. I will discuss the combination of offline and online mass spectrometry techniques to probe detailed chemical composition and temporal trends in evolving complex mixtures across
gas and aerosol phases, including: (1) leveraging high resolution tandem mass spectrometry to investigate chemical transformations in aging boreal wildfire smoke and implications for outdoor and indoor smoke exposure in downwind communities, and (2) integrating high temporal resolution and high chemical resolution mass spectrometry to understand functionalized
emissions from food cooking and evaluate their impacts on indoor air and urban outdoor air quality.

Biosketch:
Jenna Ditto is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto, working jointly in the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Department of Chemistry. Her research focuses on characterizing the emissions and chemical transformations of major sources of indoor air pollutants, including cooking and smoking. She earned her Ph.D. from Yale University in 2020,
where she developed and implemented non-targeted tandem mass spectrometry methods to investigate the emissions, transformations, and properties of functionalized gas- and aerosolphase organic compounds at a range of ambient field sites in the U.S. and Canada.