Prof. Armistead (Ted) Russell is the Howard T. Tellepsen Chair and Regents’ Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech, where his research is aimed at better understanding the dynamics of air pollutants at urban and regional scales and assessing their impacts on health and the environment to develop approaches to design strategies to effectively improve air quality. He earned his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology, conducting his research at Caltech’s Environmental Quality Laboratory. His B.S. is from Washington State University. Dr. Russell was a member of EPA’s Clean Air Science Advisory Committee (CASAC) and a member of the National Research Council’s Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology. He has served on and chaired multiple NASEM committees. He chaired the CASAC NOx-SOx, Secondary NAAQS review panel, the Ambient Air Monitoring Methods Subcommittee and the Council on Clean Air Compliance Analysis’ Air Quality Modeling Subcommittee.
Professor Russell’s research interests are conducting fundamental and applied studies on air quality modeling, health effects of air pollutants, aerosol dynamics, environmental economics and control strategy design, atmospheric chemistry, computer modeling and numerical methods, including application of emerging artificial intelligence approaches to improving air quality and environmental management globally.
1. Ph.D. California Institute of Technology 1985
2. M.S. California Institute of Technology 1980
3. B.S. Washington State University 1979
Professor Russell’s teaching interests include environmental engineering principles and their application to critical issues, air quality and the formation, fate and impacts of air pollution, and mathematical methods in environmental engineering.
- Dixy Lee Ray Medal, ASME (2025)
- Arthur Stern Distinguished Paper Award, Journal of Air and Waste Management (2023)
- Foreign Fellow, Canadian Academy of Engineering (2023)
- Environmental Science and Technology, Super-Reviewer (2021)
- Frank A. Chambers Excellence in Air Pollution Control Award, Air and Waste Management Association (2020)
- Nature Communications Top 50 Chemistry and Materials Sciences Articles (2019)
- Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee member, US EPA (2006-2012)
- China Academy of Science President’s International Fellowship for Distinguished Scientists (2019)
- Nominated for Vice President/President of the American Association for Aerosol Research (2019-2020)
- Paper of the Year, Frontiers of Environmental Science and Technology (2016)
- Environmental Excellence Award-Air Quality, Federal Highway Administration (2016)
- Distinguished Alumni Award, Washington State University (2015)
- Fellow, American Society of Mechanical Engineering (2014)
- National Associate of the National Academies (2002)
- Regents’ Professor (2013)
- Howard T. Tellepsen Chair (2012)
- Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science
- Ralph Teetor Outstanding Professor Educator Award (SAE)
- Smithsonian Scientific Computation Award: Finalist (one of 5 nationally)
- 1990 Siggraph Award for a Scientific Visualization,
- Niccograph '90 Scientific Visualization, 1st place
- Finalist, INA Visualization, Monte Carlo
- Computer Graphics Society of Japan, 1st place, Scientific Visualization
- Warren Lecture, Univ. Minnesota (2011)
- Class of 1934 Outstanding Interdisciplinary Activities Award (Georgia Tech, 2015)
- Sustained Research Award (CEE, 2013)
- Most influential individual to Intel Science Talent Search semifinalist (2013)
- “Thank you” Teacher Appreciation (2011, 2017, 2018, 2022, 2023, 2024)
- Guest Editor, Environmental Science and Technology, Issue on Particulate Matter and Health, July, 2009
- Visiting Professor, King Mongkut's University of Technology (2008)
- Distinguished Lecture, University of California-Riverside (2005)
- Outstanding Reviewer, Atmospheric Environment
- Sigma Xi Sustained Research Award (Georgia Tech, 2006)
- Outstanding Graduate Advisor (Georgia Tech, 2012)
- Outstanding Leadership Award (CEE)
- Plenary Lecture, AAAR (2004)
- Visiting Professor, University of Athens (2006)
- Outstanding Reviewer, J. Geophysical Research
- Interdisciplinary Research Award (CEE, Georgia Tech, 2014)
- Georgia Power Professorship
- Excellence in Review Award, Environmental Science and Technology
- Visiting Professor, National Taiwan University
- Visiting Professor Fellowship, Ecole Polytechnique Federale Lausanne (Switzerland)
- Outstanding Young Scholar Fellowship (Japanese International Cooperative Research Fund)
- Air Pollution Control Association National Paper Contest -- First Place
- “Off-Lake Sources of Airborne Dust in Owens Valley, California” (2025) Russell, et al., National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, The National Academies Press
- “Advancing the framework for assessing causality of health and welfare effects to inform national ambient air quality standard reviews” (2022) Russell, Stuart et al., National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, The National Academies Press
- Chen, Y. L., H. Z. Shen, G. F. Shen, J. M. Ma, Y. F. Cheng, A. G. Russell, S. L. Zhao, A. Hakami and S. Tao (2024). "Substantial differences in source contributions to carbon emissions and health damage necessitate balanced synergistic control plans in China." Nature Communications 15(1).
- Guo, P., H. Z. Shen, Y. L. Chen, H. C. Dai, Z. L. Mai, R. B. Xu, R. X. Zhang, Z. X. Wang, J. L. He, L. M. Zheng, H. Z. Sun, K. N. Ke, J. Meng, M. D. Liu, J. Li, W. Adalibieke, C. Wang, J. H. Ye, L. Zhu, G. F. Shen, T. M. Fu, A. Tsang, X. Yang, A. G. Russell, C. T. Driscoll and S. Tao (2024). "Carbon dioxide emissions from global overseas coal-fired power plants." Nature Climate Change.
- Hakami, A., S. Zhao, P. Vasilakos, A. Alhusban, Y. B. Oztaner, A. Krupnick, H. Chang and A. Russell (2024). "Spatiotemporally Detailed Quantification of Air Quality Benefits of Emissions–Part II: Sensitivity to Study Parameters and Assumptions." ACS ES&T Air.
- Gao, Z. Q., K. Do, Z. R. Li, X. Y. Jiang, K. J. Maji, C. E. Ivey and A. G. Russell (2024). "Predicting PM2.5 levels and exceedance days using machine learning methods." Atmospheric Environment 323.
- Lapointe, S., J. C. Lee, Z. P. Nagy, D. B. Shapiro, H. H. Chang, Y. F. Wang, A. G. Russell, H. S. Hipp and A. J. Gaskins (2024). "Ambient traffic related air pollution in relation to ovarian reserve and oocyte quality in young, healthy oocyte donors." Environment International 183.
- Maji, K. J., Z. R. Li, A. Vaidyanathan, Y. T. Hu, J. D. Stowell, C. Milando, G. Wellenius, P. L. Kinney, A. G. Russell and M. T. Odman (2024). "Estimated Impacts of Prescribed Fires on Air Quality and Premature Deaths in Georgia and Surrounding Areas in the US, 2015-2020." Environmental Science & Technology 58(28): 12343-12355.
- Rajagopalan, S., A. Ramaswami, A. Bhatnagar, R. D. Brook, M. Fenton, C. Gardner, R. Neff, A. G. Russell, K. C. Seto and L. P. Whitsel (2024). "Toward Heart-Healthy and Sustainable Cities: A Policy Statement From the American Heart Association." Circulation 149(15): e1067-e1089.
- Zheng, L. M., W. Adalibieke, F. Zhou, P. He, Y. L. Chen, P. Guo, J. L. He, Y. Z. Zhang, P. Xu, C. Wang, J. H. Ye, L. Zhu, G. F. Shen, T. M. Fu, X. Yang, S. L. Zhao, A. Hakami, A. G. Russell, S. Tao, J. Meng and H. Z. Shen (2024). "Health burden from food systems is highly unequal across income groups." Nature Food 5(3).
In the News
