Rebecca Saari, PEng

Dr. Rebecca K. Saari is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Waterloo. Dr. Saari studies the consequences of climate change and climate policy on human health and environmental inequality. She has 11 years of post-graduate experience in air pollution and air quality modelling at the University of Toronto (2), AECOM (3), Environment and Climate Change Canada (1), and MIT (5). As a professional air quality engineer in Ontario, she completed projects in seven Canadian provinces and territories. Dr. Saari has employed economic models, emissions models, atmospheric chemical transport models, and health response models to assess the costs and co-benefits of climate policy, energy policy, and transportation policy. She has been invited to speak at Harvard University, the University of Toronto, Carleton University, North Carolina State University, and the University of Washington. Her work has been published in Nature Climate Change, and covered in over 16 news outlets including CBC, NBC, and the New York Times. She directly informs policy through invited presentations to state-level policymakers and the U.S. EPA Climate Change Division, and she was cited in an amicus brief submitted by leading climate scientists to the D.C. Circuit Court evaluation of the U.S. Clean Power Plan – the Obama Administration's centrepiece climate policy.

• Air quality impacts of energy and climate policy, Environmental inequality, Air quality policy analysis, Sustainable infrastructure, Pollution and policy impacts by income group, Greenhouse gases and trade, Health impacts of air pollution under future climate, Air pollution impacts, Integrated modelling, Health impact and air quality modelling,

• 2015, Doctorate Engineering Systems, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
• 2007, Master of Applied Science Mechanical and Environmental Engineering, University of Toronto, Canada
• 2005, Bachelor of Applied Science Engineering Science, University of Toronto, Canada

• CIVE 495 - Design Intensive Special Topics in Civil Engineering
  • Taught in 2024
• CIVE 497 - Special Topics in Civil Engineering
  • Taught in 2019
• CIVE 770 - Topics in Environmental Engineering
  • Taught in 2019, 2023, 2024
• ENVE 277 - Air Quality Engineering
  • Taught in 2019, 2022, 2023
• ENVE 335 - Decision Making for Environmental Engineers
  • Taught in 2019, 2022, 2024
• ENVE 497 - Special Topics in Environmental Engineering
  • Taught in 2023

* Only courses taught in the past 5 years are displayed.

• Saari, Rebecca K and Thompson, Tammy M and Selin, Noelle E, Human health and economic impacts of ozone reductions by income group, Environmental Science \\& Technology, 1953, 2017
• Chang, Kelly M and Hess, Jeremy J and Balbus, John M and Buonocore, Jonathan J and Cleveland, David A and Grabow, Maggie L and Neff, Roni and Saari, Rebecca K and Tessum, Christopher W and Wilkinson, Paul and others, Ancillary health effects of climate mitigation scenarios as drivers of policy uptake: a review of air quality, transportation and diet co-benefits modeling studies, Environmental Research Letters, 113001, 2017
• Thompson, Tammy M and Rausch, Sebastian and Saari, Rebecca K and Selin, Noelle E, Air quality co-benefits of subnational carbon policies, Journal of the Air \\& Waste Management Association, 988, 2016
• Yeung, Jamie and Walbridge, Scott and Haas, Carl and Saari, Rebecca, Understanding the total life cycle cost implications of reusing structural steel, Environment Systems and Decisions, 1, 2016
• Garcia-Menendez, Fernando and Saari, Rebecca K and Monier, Erwan and Selin, Noelle E, US air quality and health benefits from avoided climate change under greenhouse gas mitigation, Environmental science \\& technology, 7580, 2015
• Thompson, Tammy M and Rausch, Sebastian and Saari, Rebecca K and Selin, Noelle E, A systems approach to evaluating the air quality co-benefits of US carbon policies, Nature Climate Change, 917, 2014
• Thompson, Tammy M and Saari, Rebecca Kaarina and Selin, Noelle Eckley, Air quality resolution for health impact assessment: influence of regional characteristics, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 969, 2014
• Saari, Rebecca and Selin, Noelle E and Rausch, Sebastian and Thompson, Tammy M, A Self-Consistent Method to Assess Air Quality Co-Benefits from US Climate Policies, Journal of the Air \\& Waste Management Asso, 74, 2014
• Rego-Barcena, Salvador and Mani, Reza and Yang, Fut and Saari, Rebecca and Thomson, Murray J, Real-time, optical measurement of gas temperature and particle emissivity in a full-scale steelmaking furnace, Metallurgical and Materials Transactions B, 158, 2009
• Rego-Barcena, Salvador and Saari, Rebecca and Mani, Reza and El-Batroukh, Sameh and Thomson, Murray J, Real time, non-intrusive measurement of particle emissivity and gas temperature in coal-fired power plants, Measurement Science and technology, 3479, 2007

• Interdisciplinary research calls for action on worsening air quality inequalities
• Researcher examines effects of Canadian wildfires