Prashant Kumar

Professor & Chair in Air Quality and Health; Founding Director, Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE), Co-Director, Institute for Sustainability, University of Surrey, University of Surrey
Prashant is a founding Co-Director of the pan-university Institute for Sustainability (https://www.surrey.ac.uk/institute-sustainability), Founding Director of the Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE; www.surrey.ac.uk/gcare) at the University of Surrey (UK). He is a Full Professor and Chair in Air Quality & Health, the founder of successfully running Guildford Living Lab (https://tinyurl.com/GuildfordLL), a Trustee at Zero Carbon Guildford (ZERO), an Adjunct Professor at Trinity College Dublin Ireland, and a Guest Professor at Southeast University China.

As an Associate Dean (International), he provided international leadership to the largest faculty. Earlier, he served as a Reader, Senior Lecturer and Lecturer. An engineer by training, he obtained his PhD (Engg) from the University of Cambridge (UK) after winning a Cambridge-Nehru Scholarship and Overseas Research Scholarship award, and earned his Master's Degree in Environmental Engineering & Management from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, with CGPA 9.8/10 and rank 1.

Clarivate Analytics recognised him in the top 1% of the Global Highly Cited, Researchers, 2022. He was the winner of the University of Surrey's "Researcher of the Year Award" in 2017.

His fundamental and application-oriented cross-disciplinary research develops the interfaces of clean air engineering/science, human health and smart/sustainable living in cities/megacities. His current research projects are focused on multidisciplinary areas of air pollution monitoring/modelling, low-cost sensing, citizen science participation, nature-based solutions for climate change mitigation and the development of innovative technological and passive (e.g. green infrastructure) solutions, tools and guidance for both developing and developed world.

A prolific author with >300 articles in top-ranked journals, his research has attracted >16800 citations, h-index, 68; i10index, 239, secured £11M of individual research funding from >£30M projects, funded by the UKRI, EC, industry, charities & international funding bodies. Currently, he is a PI/Director of the £1.2M UKRI-funded RECLAIM Network Plus.

He has developed a network of collaborators across four continents and works closely with industrial partners. He is Editor-in-Chief of the air quality section of ‘Atmosphere’, founding Speciality Chief Editor of ‘Climate Change & Cities’ and serves editorial board of several journals (e.g. Scientific Reports).

He advises local/international bodies and serves as a board member of many funding agencies in the UK and worldwide. His research has featured in well-read media outlets such as the BBC and The Times.