Meet EPA Scientist Serena Chung, Ph.D.
Serena Chung is the Extramural Research Lead for EPA’s Air, Climate, and Energy (ACE) Science to Achieve Results (STAR) extramural research program. Prior to joining to the EPA, she was a research professor in the Laboratory for Atmospheric Research at Washington State University (WSU), where her research focused on interactions between air quality and climate.
Tell us about your background.
I grew up in Taiwan and moved to the U.S. just before starting sixth grade. I studied chemical engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and received my Ph.D., also in chemical engineering, from California Institute of Technology, where I studied how human activities have affected the distributions of particles in the atmosphere and subsequently climate due the particles’ influence on radiation in the atmosphere. I was a post-doctoral researcher at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), where I worked with scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on improving our understanding of how particles affect radiation.
What are you working on right now?
In my current role with EPA’s ACE STAR program, I work with the ACE program to identify long-term research needs related to improving air quality, addressing climate change, and protecting public health and the environment. I work with experts from across EPA to develop solicitations for extramural research grants that address the identified research needs. I also coordinate internal review of research proposals we receive in response to our solicitations to help select projects that are most relevant to EPA’s mission and priorities. We most recently funded several research grants to advance measurement and monitoring methods for air toxics and contaminants of emerging concern in the atmosphere. Currently, we are working to fund community-engaged research projects to study the drivers and environmental impacts of energy transitions in underserved communities and tribes.
When did you first know you wanted to be a scientist?
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always gravitated towards math and science in school. The ongoing sense of discovery as I learned new theories or principles and applying them to gain new insights about the world always felt very satisfying. Starting in high school, I became more interested in chemistry. I studied chemical engineering in college because I wanted to combine my interests in chemistry and math. Those interests gradually turned towards the environment and climate change as I learned more about these topics during college, and those topics became the focus of my graduate and post-graduate research focus.
What do you like most about your work at EPA?
I love that I am constantly learning something new and interesting. Almost every day I hear about intriguing new research ideas or read about exciting new findings from scientists at EPA and the external scientific community. Even though I don’t do research myself anymore, I still feel a sense of discovery when I learn about others’ amazing work.
How does your science matter?
STAR is EPA’s primary competitive, peer-reviewed extramural research program. It leverages the scientific and engineering expertise of researchers at academic and nonprofit institutions by funding them to conduct cutting edge environmental and public health research. By design, STAR solicitations focus on research questions that require multiple approaches or explorations of different approaches. We often pose questions that require multi-disciplinary research to tackle. The projects that are investigating strategies to reduce people’s exposures to wildfire smoke, which can cause serious health problems, are examples of multidisciplinary research we recently funded. These projects require integration of social and physical sciences to investigate social and behavioral factors that affect people’s ability and willingness to take actions to reduce their exposure. By soliciting and funding multidisciplinary research, the STAR program also fosters collaborations in the scientific community that benefits science beyond the lifetime of the projects.
If you weren’t a scientist, what would you be doing?
This is a tough one because it’s difficult to imagine myself not being involved in science in some way. I would probably be a software designer or computer programmer of some sort because I really like the logical nature of computer programming. Doing something that combines programming with art would be great.
What advice would you give a student interested in a career in science?
My first advice would be to explore many different scientific topics and continue to learn about various topics even if the student has found passion in a specific topic because it helps with thinking outside of the box. I would also advise the student to talk to people who work in different fields, are at different stages of their career, and have taken different career paths. Finally, I would advise the student to get involved in research.
What’s your role in space research at EPA?
Data from instruments on satellites provide a wealth of information about the atmosphere and land surface conditions. These data are great complements to data from ground- and aerial-based measurements because they are long-term data with large spatial coverage. For example, we’ve funded projects that utilize satellite data to evaluate and improve the performance of air quality models. Another example is the use of satellite-based data with other data to provide estimates of atmospheric particle concentrations, which are then used in epidemiological studies on the adverse health effects of particles. Detection of wildfires and wildfire smoke from space is not only useful for wildfire response but also provides data that researchers can use for a variety of studies, such as studies on the health effects of wildfire smoke and trends on wildfire frequency and severity.
If you can have any superpower, what would you choose?
Not quite a superpower but it would be great to have the abilities of the characters in Chinese wuxia (martial art heroes) novels. They are able to cultivate qi so that they can have impeccable reflexes and physics-defying defensive and fighting skills, including ging gong (gravity-defying jumps, flying). If I really must stick to one superpower, however, it would be teleportation -- as long as I can bring others with me -- because I like to visit and experience different places, but I dislike the in-between traveling part.
You are stranded on a desert island; how do you use science to survive?
I don’t ever want to be stranded in a desert, island or otherwise, because I need humidity. I would hope that I have access to a satellite phone that I can use to ask for help and get un-stranded.
Editor's Note: The opinions expressed herein are those of the researcher alone. EPA does not endorse the opinions or positions expressed.