Vice President for Research

Breathing Easier: Air Pollution Challenges and Solutions | March 20-21, 2025

The symposium will consider air pollution’s environmental and human health tolls—including the unequal burdens air pollution places on disadvantaged communities. Despite gains in many places, air pollution remains a vexing problem across the nation. In Utah, winters bring inversions and particulate matter pollution, and summers deliver increased ground-level ozone pollution. The Wasatch Front regularly exceeds national ambient air quality standards, exacerbated by the region’s unique geography and meteorology.

Finding solutions to these thorny problems becomes only more vital with each passing year. Emerging threats like dust from the shrinking Great Salt Lake and intensifying wildfire smoke further compound longstanding air pollution problems. Experts will share potential solutions, including those that have found success in other parts of the country.