| 1 | Name: | Dr. Kimberly A. Prather | |
| Institution: | Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego | ||
| Year Elected: | 2022 | ||
| Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | ||
| Subdivision: | 105. Physical Earth Sciences | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Living | ||
| Birth Date: | 1962 | ||
Kimberly A. Prather is a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and the Distinguished Chair in Atmospheric Chemistry at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego (UCSD). She is also Founding Director of the NSF Center for Aerosol Impacts on Chemistry of the Environment. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis in 1990. Prior to her arrival at the Scripps Institute, she taught at the University of California, Riverside from 1992 to 2001 and worked as a Research Associate at the Statewide Air Pollution Research Center from 1994 to 2001. Prather has worked on aerosols throughout her professional career. She devised an aerosol time-of-flight mass spectrometer with high temporal and size resolutions, using it to study health effects of ultrafine particles to precisely measure their size and composition, as well as to measure exhaust particles from heavy-duty gasoline/diesel vehicles. She discovered that aerosols traveled well into the stratosphere where they froze and later returned to Earth; this research became critical in studying atmospheric environments' impact on the COVID-19 pandemic. While WHO and CDC first proposed that the virus was passed from person to person by contact with surfaces, it is actually spread via stable aerosols--not by surface contacts or droplets settling on these surfaces. Recently, at a National Academy of Sciences symposium, Anthony Fauci, Prather, and others discussed aerosols' role in the spread of COVID-19 and the importance of minimizing contamination using good ventilation, HEPA filters, and masking especially at newly-opened schools and offices. Prather received the American Society for Mass Spectrometry Award, the National Science Foundation Special Creativity and Young Investigators Awards, the Smoluchowski Award, the Kenneth T. Whitby Award, The Arthur F. Findeis Award, the UCSD Faculty Sustainability Award, the American Chemical Society's Distinguished Scientist Award, the Haagen-Smit Clean Air Award, the Chancellor's Associates Excellence Award in Research in Science and Engineering, and the 2024 NAS Award in Chemical Sciences. She has been a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences since 2010, the National Academy of Engineering since 2019, and the National Academy of Sciences since 2020. Prather was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2022. | |||