Our Research Team
The AQMEL research team comprises bright and innovative scholars who bring a diversity of experiences and perspectives to our group. Scroll below to learn more about our specialists, graduate research assistants, and undergraduate contributors.
Dr. Cesunica E. Ivey
Principal Investigator
Dr. Ivey is an Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley, and she is a graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Alisha Mahajan
Assistant Director of Operations
Alisha is a UC Berkeley alumna with a double major in environmental economics and legal studies, with a minor in public policy. She manages AQMEL research operations and leads extramural and department service activities. She also supports operations for the Collective for Inclusive Engineering.
Cam Phelan
Ph.D. Candidate
Cam is a Ph.D. candidate in the environmental engineering program. She leads research on wintertime air pollution during persistent temperature inversion events. Specifically, she investigates chemical transport model sensitivity to chemical mechanism choice and process-related contributions to modeled pollution during inversions.
Duncan Quevedo
Ph.D. Candidate
Duncan is a Ph.D. candidate in the environmental engineering program. He leads research on the development of air quality modeling tools for air pollution mitigation applications. He also develops empirical and first-principles methods to better characterize model uncertainty and sensitivity to emissions and meteorology.
Yi Ji
Ph.D. Student
Yi is a graduate student in the environmental engineering program at UC Berkeley. She leads research that investigates the challenges of communicating wildfire exposure risks to the public. She also assisted with the CARB sponsored time-activity pattern review.
Sumukhi Prasad
Ph.D. Student
Sumu is Ph.D. student in the environmental engineering program at UC Berkeley. She also is an NSF GRFP awardee. She is leading research on personal air pollution exposures and measurement biases. She is an H2H8 research grant awardee and a participant in the Faculty Diversity Internship Program.
Ivette Torres
Ph.D. Student
Ivette is Ph.D. student in the environmental engineering program at UC Berkeley. She led the 2020-2023 CARB Year 2 Community Air Grant at UC Riverside's Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE-CERT) as project coordinator. She is also a UC Berkeley CEEJ seed grant recipient.
Akirah Epps
Ph.D. Student
Akirah is Ph.D. student in the environmental engineering program at UC Berkeley. She is an ARCS Fellowship recipient and the lead author on a recent paper in ES&T. Her research interests lie at the intersection of atmospheric sciences, sustainability, and environmental justice.
Tanvi Sagaonkar
M.S. Researcher
Tanvi is M.S. student in the environmental engineering program at UC Berkeley. Her research focuses on the application of low-cost monitoring to supporting community-driven decision-making. Her work supports communities in Marin City and Martinez, CA.
Christopher Devlin
Undergraduate Researcher
Christopher is an environmental sciences and business administration student. He is also a SEED scholar. He supports the EPA STAR wildfire smoke communication project and other projects related to smoke exposure risk assessment.
Lauren Kim
Undergraduate Researcher
Lauren is a society and environment student with a minor in geospatial information sciences and technology. She leads technical support and research for community-based projects in Marin City, CA.
Ishaan Gupta
High School Researcher
Ishaan is supporting the EPA STAR wildfire smoke communication project.
URAP Researchers
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Spring 2025
Garima, M.S. Environmental Engineering
Lauren Kim, B.S. Society & Environment
Alisha Mahajan, B.S. Environmental Economic & B.S. Legal Studies
Mallory Mihm, B.S. Neuroscience
Sydney Rowe, B.S. Physics
Tanvi Sagaonkar, M.S. Environmental Engineering
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Undergraduate Volunteers
UC Riverside and Riverside City College volunteers support the CARB Community Air Grant research efforts. UC Berkeley undergraduates support our EPA STAR research.
Alumni
2025
Dr. Jennifer Ofodile, Ph.D. Environmental Science, Policy, and Management; now Principal Air Quality Specialist at Bay Area Air District
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Sophie Castillo, M.S. Environmental Engineering
Stessie Chounoune, M.S. Environmental Engineering
Srishti Hazra, M.S. Energy, Civil Infrastructure, and Climate
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2024
Ayah Hassan, M.S. Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
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​Grace Contreras, B.S. Linguistics, UC Berkeley
Isabelle Goebel, B.S. Civil Engineering, UC Berkeley
Peri Muftuoglu, B.S. Environmental Engineering Science, UC Berkeley
Parker Yang, B.S. Civil Engineering, UC Berkeley
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2023
Dr. Khanh Do, Ph.D. Chemical and Environmental Engineering, UC Riverside; now Postdoctoral researcher at Northeastern University
​Prof. Abiola Lawal, ASEE eFellows Postdoctoral Scholar; now Assistant Professor at University of Connecticut
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Andrea Delgado, B.S. Environmental Science, UC Riverside
Zoe Haynes, B.S. Civil Engineering, UC Berkeley
Mara Lovric, Energy Engineering, UC Berkeley
Charlotte Mourad, B.S. Civil Engineering, UC Berkeley
Migdalia Sanchez, Mechanical Engineering, UC Berkeley
April Zhang, B.S. Data Science, B.S. Sustainable Environmental Design, UC Berkeley
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Anusha Ladha, High School Volunteer
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2022
Alexander Nguyen, B.S. Chemical Engineering, UC Riverside
2021
Sebastien Banales, B.S. Chemical Engineering, UC Riverside
Karrengton Fountain, B.S. Environmental Engineering, UC Riverside
Arash Kashfi Yeganeh, Chemical and Environmental Engineering, UC Riverside
Jasmin Velasquez, B.S. Chemical Engineering, UC Riverside
Ruoming Xu, B.S. Chemical Engineering, UC Riverside
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2019
Anthony Arteaga, B.S. Chemical Engineering, UC Riverside
Aaron Garcia, Aerospace Engineering, Riverside City College
Cole Lawless, B.S. Chemical Engineering, UC Riverside
Ali Raza, B.A. Chemical Engineering, UC Riverside
Saray Rodriguez, Business Information Systems, Riverside City College
Hector Soto, Electrical Engineering, Riverside City College
Priscilla Villegas, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Riverside City College
David Wilson, Electrical Engineering, Riverside City College
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