Helene Lunder Halvorsen
Dr Helene Lunder Halvorsen is a scientist at the Department of Environmental Chemistry and Health Effects and responsible for the Norwegian monitoring programme "Atmospheric contaminants" on behalf of the Norwegian Environment Agency. She is also involved in the reporting of organic contaminants under the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme EMEP.
She has a master's degree in Organic Chemistry (MSc) and completed her PhD at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Oslo in 2023. In her PhD, she focused on regulated persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and used air samples from Norway and Europe to investigate the occurrence, distribution and sources of POPs.
During her 13 years at NILU, she has gained much experience with air sampling and analysis of organic contaminants, with a particular focus on method development and quality assurance of data.
Monika Strasser Englund
Monika Strasser Englund is the administration coordinator in the Department of Environmental Chemistry and Health Effects at NILU.
As administrative coordinator, Englund is responsible for all the administrative work and plays a key role in tying together the various disciplines and departments into one business. She is an active partner and facilitator, and is systematic, service-minded, responsible and proactive.
She is also an employee representative on NILU's board.
Núria Castell
Núria Castell, Senior Scientist at NILU, is the coordinator of the Technology and Society group, leading national and international research projects focused on the uptake and validation of novel sensor technologies and the integration of citizen observations in policy and research.
She is currently coordinating the Horizon Europe CitiObs project, aiming at enhancing Citizen Observatories for urban environmental monitoring in 85 cities in Europe.
Núria’s academic pursuits encompass a wide-ranging spectrum of fields, including sustainable urban development, citizen science, environmental governance, planetary health, urban living labs experimentation and the intersection of science and art.
Núria also holds the position of co-chair of the Citizen Science Global Partnership group on Scaling-up citizen science Air-quality monitoring and the European Citizen Science Association's working group on air quality.
Sam-Erik Walker
Sam-Erik Walker holds an M.Sc. in Statistics and a B.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of Oslo.
He has over 30 years of experience developing and applying air pollution dispersion models for cities and urban areas and analysing air quality data using various numerical and statistical tools and methods. These include deterministic and probabilistic methods for model evaluation and validation, data assimilation, ensemble modelling, and data fusion to combine air quality observations with model results. He is one of the principal authors of several of the present models at NILU, including the urban air pollution dispersion model EPISODE.
He is also the leading developer behind the AirGAM trend and prediction model at NILU. This model enables the estimation of meteorology-adjusted long-term trends of air pollutants such as NO2, O3, PM, and VOCs at air quality stations in Norway and Europe. It has been used to quantify the effects of lockdowns during the recent COVID-19 pandemic and for estimating long-term trends for all EEA stations in Europe.
Recently, he developed the AirRisk model, a risk assessment model to quantify the risk or probability of exceeding limit values of NO2 and PM in connection with recent assessment studies in various Norwegian cities and urban areas, including Lørenskog, Drammen, and Oslo.
He actively disseminates scientific knowledge by writing reports and papers and regularly participates in scientific conferences. His primary motivation for working at NILU is to contribute to a cleaner world.
Wenche Aas
Dr. Wenche Aas holds a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry and specializes in atmospheric composition and the long-range transport of air pollution. She leads the Norwegian monitoring program for long-range transboundary air pollution on behalf of the Norwegian Environment Agency and the Ministry of Climate and Environment.
She coordinates the work under the Chemical Coordinating Centre (CCC) hosted at NILU within the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP) under the UN-ECE.
Dr. Aas is a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Total Atmospheric Deposition (SAG-TAD) and Measurement-Model Fusion for Global Total Atmospheric Deposition (MMF-GTAD) within the WMO/GAW framework. She is a member of the Board of Directors for SIOS.
Richard Olav Rud
Roles
- System developer
- UX (user experience) coordinator
Responsibility
- UX (user experience) coordinator
- ACTRIS Data Portal/DVAS services
- ATMO-ACCESS services
- Metadata Services related to EBAS
- IRISCC services
Torleif Weydahl
Torleif Weydahl is a senior scientist in the Department of Urban Environment and Industry and has worked at NILU since 2017. He holds a degree in mechanical engineering specializing in energy and process technology and has a doctorate from the University of Trondheim (NTNU) in modeling of turbulent mixing and reactions.
At NILU, Torleif primarily works on air quality (AQ) assessments related to requirements within Norwegian regulation and in emission permits for Norwegian municipalities and industrial companies. He conducts emission and dispersion calculations for several source sectors, including analyses and the preparation of reports and documentation. He has developed AQ assessment and action plans for several Norwegian municipalities and has led the development of NERVE, an emission model for road traffic.
Torleif contributes to the European Environment Agency's (EEA) topic centers, focusing on reporting emissions from the industrial sector in EU and EEA member countries. He is also an experienced project manager.
Before starting at NILU, Torleif gained experience in carbon capture and storage research from SINTEF in Trondheim and in consultancy related to fire and safety at Lloyd's Register.
Karl Espen Yttri
Dr. Karl Espen Yttri is a senior scientist at NILU with a Ph.D. in aerosol science. He has extensive expertise in atmospheric aerosols and their chemical composition across diverse environments, ranging from urban areas to the pristine Arctic and Antarctic.
His primary focus is on carbonaceous aerosols, using both on-line and off-line methodologies for the source apportionment of anthropogenic and natural aerosol sources. This includes developing analytical methods for carbonaceous aerosol, including source-specific organic tracers.
As a member of the Chemical Coordinating Centre of the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP) at NILU, he contributes to research on the long-range atmospheric transport of aerosol particles.