John H. Seinfeld

Who is John H. Seinfeld?

John H. Seinfeld is an expert in the causes and modelling of tropospheric pollution.

He grew up in Elmira, NY and attended the University of Rochester, where he received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering, and Princeton University, where he received a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering. His doctoral dissertation was concerned with the theory of control and optimization of distributed-parameter systems, that is, systems governed by partial differential equations.

He joined the California Institute of Technology as Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering in 1967. Shortly after joining Caltech, he became intrigued with Los Angeles's historic smog, which, at that time, was near record highs. Caltech biology professor Ari Haagen-Smit had, in the early 1950s, surmised that ozone, the principal gaseous component of smog, results from reactions involving volatile hydrocarbons and oxides of nitrogen. Seinfeld realized that modeling the formation of smog over an urban area like Los Angeles would involve describing mathematically the three-dimensional transport, mixing, and chemical reactions in the atmosphere.