Dr. Kevin Perry has more than 19 years of management and research experience in the areas of ambient air quality monitoring, instrumentation/analytical technique development, source apportionment, atmospheric dry deposition, and the climatic and health effects of particulate matter. His experience includes management and participation in ~20 ambient air monitoring projects ranging from local-scale pollution events (e.g. plumes from the World Trade Center collapse, smoke from pyrotechnic displays) to the intercontinental transport of pollutants (e.g., Aerosol Characterization Experiment – ACE-Asia, International Transport and Chemical Transformation Experiment – ITCT2K2). Dr. Perry has deployed ambient air monitoring equipment at ground-based, ship-based, airborne, and high-altitude mountain observatories around the globe. He also developed a technique using the Advanced Light Source (ALS) Synchrotron at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) to use Synchrotron-Xray Fluorescence (S-XRF) to characterize the size- and time-resolved elemental composition of atmospheric particulate matter.

Dr. Perry’s current research is focused on quantifying the effects of particulate matter on birth outcomes and gastrointestinal health using a retrospective analysis of existing air quality data with patient medical and birth records from the Utah Population Database (UPDB). Dr. Perry’s most recently completed research projects included serving as PI on two U.S. EPA Regional Applied Research Effort (RARE) projects related to the transport and deposition of atmospheric mercury and as the PI for the National Atmospheric Deposition Program AMNet site (UT96) located on the shore of the Great Salt Lake. Dr. Perry also currently serves as the chair of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences overseeing scholarly, teaching, and service activities of 11 regular faculty, 17 research faculty/postdocs, 33 graduate students, 73 undergraduates, and an annual research and administrative budget of ~$5million/year.

Dr. Perry teaches a wide variety of courses within the Department of Atmospheric Sciences including an Honors think tank course on Air Quality, Health, and Society. He is one of two members in the College of Mines and Earth Sciences to receive the University of Utah Early Career Teaching Award. Dr. Perry is a member of the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union, and has published 29 peer-reviewed journal articles and two book chapters.