Keynote Speaker 5: Dr Vera Samburova | Desert Research Institute
Tracks
CleanAir 1
CleanAir 2
CleanAir 3
CleanAir 4
| Tuesday, September 1, 2026 |
| 9:30 AM - 10:10 AM |
Overview
Breathing Through Fire: Air Quality Challenges in a Warming World
Details
Megafires (wildfires that burn over 100–1,000 km2) have increased in frequency and intensity over the past several decades worldwide, particularly in western North America. Their occurrence is driven by multiple interconnected factors, including a hotter and drier climate, prolonged droughts, and forest management practices that have contributed to the accumulation of dry fuels. Beyond their immediate destruction of vegetation and landscapes, megafires profoundly affect human and natural systems by altering soil properties, increasing the risk of debris flows and landslides, disrupting wildlife habitats, and impacting terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.
Moreover, wildfire emissions significantly degrade air quality, locally, regionally, and in distant regions after being transported over thousands of kilometers. In areas such as California and Nevada (United States), wildfire smoke has become one of the dominant contributors to poor air quality and population exposure to hazardous pollutants. Accurate assessment and characterization of fire emissions and exposures, including toxic organic compounds such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and post-fire dust, are therefore critical for understanding their health and environmental impacts. Improved assessment of wildfire emissions is essential for advancing air quality management strategies and addressing the growing challenges posed by 21st-century megafires.
Moreover, wildfire emissions significantly degrade air quality, locally, regionally, and in distant regions after being transported over thousands of kilometers. In areas such as California and Nevada (United States), wildfire smoke has become one of the dominant contributors to poor air quality and population exposure to hazardous pollutants. Accurate assessment and characterization of fire emissions and exposures, including toxic organic compounds such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and post-fire dust, are therefore critical for understanding their health and environmental impacts. Improved assessment of wildfire emissions is essential for advancing air quality management strategies and addressing the growing challenges posed by 21st-century megafires.
Speaker
Dr Vera Samburova
Associate Research Professor
Desert Research Institute
Keynote Speaker 5: Dr Vera Samburova | Desert Research Institute
Biography
Dr. Vera Samburova is an Associate Research Professor at the Desert Research Institute (Reno, Nevada, USA). She earned her master’s degree in analytical chemistry in 2002 from Lomonosov Moscow State University (Russia) and subsequently joined the research group of Renato Zenobi at ETH Zurich (Switzerland) for her Ph.D. research, where she focused on the characterization of high-molecular-weight organic compounds in atmospheric aerosols. In 2007, she joined the Desert Research Institute (Division of Atmospheric Sciences), where she continued her environmental research.
Dr. Samburova has extensive experience in the analysis of organic compounds emitted from a wide range of sources, including fires, vehicles, cannabis cultivation facilities, and e-cigarettes. Her research focuses on the characterization of gas- and particle-phase atmospheric organic species and the investigation of pollutants generated during biomass-burning experiments under controlled laboratory conditions and wildland fires. She has substantial expertise in leading, organizing, and conducting combustion chamber experiments and field sampling campaigns, including recent fieldwork involving the collection and analysis of ash and dust following California megafires and wildland–urban interface (WUI) fires in Los Angeles in January 2025.
