Linsey Marr Kicks Off Dean’s Distinguished Speaker Series

February 23 marked the return of the College of Engineering Dean’s Distinguished Speaker Series with a full crowd at the Student Community Center welcoming Linsey Marr to campus.  

The Charles P. Lunsford Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech, Marr has been one of the foremost experts leading the pandemic response as one of a small number of researchers who was studying viruses in the air prior to the pandemic. She has been cited by public health agencies and media outlets around the world for her research on SARS-CoV-2 and other airborne pathogens. A newly elected member of the National Academy of Engineering, Marr is a recipient of an NSF CAREER Award and an NIH New Innovator Award.  

Currently, she leads a multi-disciplinary effort called Mitigate Flu at Virginia Tech, which aims to better understand the transmission of flu.  

Her talk at UC Davis titled "An Engineering Perspective on the Secret Lives of Airborne Viruses" focused on air pollution and the efficacy with which viruses spread through the air as well as how engineering solutions have been at the forefront of reducing infection.  

"Engineers have really played a critical role in pandemic response," Marr said.  

Specifically, it has been engineering interventions like ventilation and filtration that have played significant roles in reducing the amount of virus in indoor air and thus the risk of transmission.  

Part of Marr’s talk involved demonstrating just how many airborne pathogens enter and remain in the air around us. Larger droplets will fall within a distance like six feet which was recommended for reducing coronavirus spread. But smaller droplets travel much further and, unless the virus dies in the air, can only be removed through engineering solutions like ventilation or air filtration and devices like Corsi-Rosenthal Boxes.  

The college’s next event in the Dean's Distinguished Speaker Series will feature Kim Budil, M.S. '88, Ph.D. '94, the Director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, on April 19.