Kimberly Ann Prather

Kimberly Prather is an American scientist who is an Atmospheric Chemist, Distinguished Chair in Atmospheric Chemistry, and a Distinguished Professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UC San Diego. Her work focuses on how human emissions are influencing the atmosphere, climate, and human health. In April 2020, she was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences in honor of outstanding contributions to aerosol chemistry.

Prather is working to understand the health and environmental impacts of ocean-derived pollutants and toxins in run-off and and outfalls. Her work focuses on studying the ocean-to-atmosphere transfer and subsequent atmospheric transport and extent of human exposure. Her research specifically focuses on measurements of the concentration of particles that are small enough to be inhaled deep into our lungs and impact human health. This represents a new area of research that can be used for alerting the public and predicting days with heavier airborne pollution and bacterial loads, especially during storm events that wash contaminants into the coastal ocean where they can become airborne. She is working collaboratively with a team of interdisciplinary scientists including in the Health Sciences to study the potential health effects of these ocean-derived natural microbes and anthropogenic pollutants under changing climate conditions. In 2019, she was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering. She is an elected Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.