This page last reviewed January 27, 2010

Haagen-Smit Clean Air Awards

Background

Beginning in 2001, the Air Resources Board (ARB) annually recognizes and honors outstanding individuals who have made significant contributions toward improving air quality through their lifetime commitment, perseverance, leadership, and innovation in the areas of research, environmental policy, science technology, public education, or community service. Scientists, professors, legislators, activists, business leaders, and other esteemed persons in the air quality community have been previous winners.

Nominations

Congratulations to the 2008 Haagen-Smit Clean Air Award recipients!
Dr. Robert Sawyer - Clean Air Technologies
Hank Wedaa - Clean Air Policies
Dr. Alex Farrell - Air Pollution Research

Click here to read about the Haagen-Smit Clean Air Award recipients from 2001-2008 (PDF).

Who is Dr. Haagen-Smit?

The prestigious award program was named after Dr. Arie J. Haagen-Smit, a native of Utrecht in the Netherlands, who was a leader in developing air quality standards based on his research efforts. Dr. Haagen-Smit, known by many as the "father" of air pollution control, was a graduate of the University of Utrecht and a biochemistry professor at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena for 16 years before beginning his air pollution research in 1948. Through a series of experiments, he found that most of California's smog resulted from photochemistry (when exhaust from motor vehicles and industrial facilities react with sunlight to create ozone). This breakthrough is the foundation upon which today's nationwide air pollution standards are based. After serving for eight years as an original board member of ARB's predecessor, the Motor Vehicle Pollution Control Board, Dr. Haagen-Smit became ARB's first chairman in 1968. In 1977, he died of lung cancer two months after the ARB laboratory in El Monte was dedicated in his name.

Dr. Haagen-Smit has been honored with another award program administered by Atmospheric Environment, a publication of original air pollution research and its applications. For more information on the Atmospheric Environment Haagen-Smit Prize and recent winners, go to http://geo.arc.nasa.gov/sgg/singh/aehaagen.html.

Photos Courtesy of the Archives, California Institute of Technology

Resources

For information about the 2008 Annual Haagen-Smit Symposium visit this link http://www.arb.ca.gov/planning/hsmit2008/hsmit2008.htm.

For more information on Dr. Haagen-Smit visit these links:

• Dr. Arie J. Haagen-Smit on Wikipedia
• The National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoirs of Dr. Haagen-Smit
• A Lesson from the Smog Capital of the World by A.J. Haagen-Smit (October 1970)
• Arie Jan Haagen-Smit by James N. Pitts, Jr. and Edgar R. Stephens (published in the Journal of the Air Pollution Control Association, Volume 28 1978)

For more information on ARB's Clean Air Awards, contact Heather Choi at hchoi@arb.ca.gov or (916) 322-3893.

Research Activities