Annual Aerosol Science Conference 2026

Event information

Speakers

Invited speakers

Prof Ian Colbeck

Emeritus Professor, University of Essex

The Aerosol Society: 40th Anniversary

Ian Colbeck and John Pritchard

The inaugural meeting of the Aerosol Society was held on 15 July 1986 at the Royal Free Hospital. It was formed to recognise the need to provide a forum to encourage translation of science across the different disciplines. This theme continues today, and still provokes great interest, as evidenced by the success of the Aerosol CDT.

Since its formation the Society has hosted an International Aerosol Conference, 4 European Aerosol Conferences, Annual Conferences, 36 Drug Delivery (DDL) Conferences as well as numerous one day meetings. This talk will give a brief overview of the formation of the Aerosol Society, the significance of DDL, and an analysis of how the topics and institutions at the Annual Conferences have changed over the years.

For example, the very first one day meeting was on aerosols in veterinary science; a topic which rarely appears nowadays even at European Aerosol Conferences. The first annual conference was attended by over 100 participants and consisted of 2 plenaries and 37 oral presentations. These were split into sessions on (i) sampling, generation and analysis; (ii) industrial and nuclear aerosols; (iii) fundamental and theoretical; (iv) medical/biological aspects; (v) agricultural aspects; (vi) atmospheric. Speaker affiliations included the Health and Safety Executive (Cricklewood), Warren Spring Laboratory, Central Electricity Generating Board, AEE Winfrith.

Dr John N Pritchard

The Aerosol Society: 40th Anniversary

Ian Colbeck and John Pritchard

The inaugural meeting of the Aerosol Society was held on 15 July 1986 at the Royal Free Hospital. It was formed to recognise the need to provide a forum to encourage translation of science across the different disciplines. This theme continues today, and still provokes great interest, as evidenced by the success of the Aerosol CDT.

Since its formation the Society has hosted an International Aerosol Conference, 4 European Aerosol Conferences, Annual Conferences, 36 Drug Delivery (DDL) Conferences as well as numerous one day meetings. This talk will give a brief overview of the formation of the Aerosol Society, the significance of DDL, and an analysis of how the topics and institutions at the Annual Conferences have changed over the years.

For example, the very first one day meeting was on aerosols in veterinary science; a topic which rarely appears nowadays even at European Aerosol Conferences. The first annual conference was attended by over 100 participants and consisted of 2 plenaries and 37 oral presentations. These were split into sessions on (i) sampling, generation and analysis; (ii) industrial and nuclear aerosols; (iii) fundamental and theoretical; (iv) medical/biological aspects; (v) agricultural aspects; (vi) atmospheric. Speaker affiliations included the Health and Safety Executive (Cricklewood), Warren Spring Laboratory, Central Electricity Generating Board, AEE Winfrith.

Professor Jonathan Reid

Professor of Physical Chemistry, University of Bristol

Airborne disease transmission: Do we know more than we did 7 years ago?

To study the airborne transmission of disease requires multidisicplinary teams of researchers from infectious disease experts to engineers, virologists and microbiologists, chemists and aerosol scientists. Our understanding has advanced considerably since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic but there is still much we do not know or understand. This talk will review our state of knowledge and highlight areas where research is still required.

Ilona Riipinen

Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, Stockholm University

Two-way interactions between atmospheric aerosols, clouds and precipitation

Aerosol particles, clouds and precipitation interact with each other and the atmospheric gas phase in multiple ways. These complex interactions need to be better understood and quantitatively described to improve the estimates on how anthropogenic aerosol emissions have impacted the Earth’s radiation budget during the industrial period. Such mechanistic understanding will also facilitate making reliable future projections on climate, the hydrological cycle and various biogeochemical cycles in the Earth system.

Perturbations in the concentrations and properties of atmospheric aerosol particles directly influence the total number and size distribution of cloud droplets formed through activation, thereby influencing the overall microphysics and radiative properties of clouds. Direct measurement of this aerosol-cloud interaction (ACI) is challenging, but novel experimental techniques and the improved statistics provided by long-term observations in selected field sites provide unprecedented opportunities for identifying the key drivers of Cloud Condensation Nuclei (CCN) and Cloud Droplet Number Concentrations (CDNC) in conditions representing various pollution levels and meteorological conditions. Identifying these drivers, in turn, will help guide the prioritization of future experiments and theory development towards better description of ACI in e.g. Earth System Models.

Clouds and precipitation, in their turn, impact the atmospheric aerosol particle concentrations and properties through various pathways. Wet removal (i.e. uptake of particulate material to hydrometeors and removal by precipitation) is the most important loss pathway for aerosol particles from the atmosphere. In fact, long-term field observations suggest that trends in precipitation can contribute significantly to overall long-term trends in atmospheric particles. Processing by cloud cycling is also widely recognized to significantly influence both the size distribution as well as the chemical composition of atmospheric aerosol populations. Clouds and precipitation also influence the sources of atmospheric aerosol: they can influence New Particle Formation (NPF) processes through 1) transporting nucleating vapors to higher, colder, altitudes; 2) cleaning up the air from accumulation mode particles which act as a sink for the newly-formed particles; 3) influencing the atmospheric chemical reactions central to NPF. Field studies suggest a direct link between precipitation and the addition of small particles into the atmosphere, but the exact mechanisms behind these observations are not fully resolved.

In my talk, I will present some of our recent studies targeting the various branches of the two-way interactions between atmospheric aerosol particles, clouds and precipitation – based on a suite of numerical models, field observations and laboratory experiments. I will focus primarily on warm-cloud microphysics, and present work relevant for various pollution conditions, with a particular focus on clean forest environments.

Ruth Brooker

Creator, Clean Air for Kids Ltd

Small Particles, Big Consequences. A personal journey to protect children's health through breathing better air 

I studied English Literature. I care about semi-colons and write words for a living. How did someone like me end up becoming obsessed with invisible aerosols and air quality? Clean Air for Kids didn’t start life in a chemistry research project; it began with a simple, unsettling realisation: the air in schools where children spend their day was far worse than most people realised. With densely-packed, poorly ventilated classrooms, it’s where they are most likely to pick up sickness.
But it doesn’t have to be.
With political leadership, we could transform the lives of schoolchildren, their teachers, and their families.
Four years ago it was me and a DIY air filter trying to improve one classroom; now it has grown into an all-consuming push for policy change. This talk shares the unexpected journey of a non-scientist stepping into the world of particles, ventilation and filtration because children’s health needs protecting.

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The Aerosol Society recognises the importance of our diverse community and believe that to produce the best quality science we must encourage a proactive and inclusive approach to equality. This can be achieved by developing and retaining a diverse range of talented people to achieve their full potential free from discrimination. We acknowledge our role in engaging with the wider aerosol science community to develop a fair and friendly environment by promoting equality, diversity and inclusion for all, recognising that we come from varying backgrounds and experiences.