Aja Ellis

Aja is an atmospheric scientist that develops and oversees air monitoring in disadvantaged communities, interfacing with local regulators, CBOs, and the public, and analyzing geospatial datasets to provide actionable information for community groups, policy makers, and industry. 

Aja is the lead for Community Air Monitoring Plan (CAMP) development for the California Statewide Mobile Monitoring Initiative (SMMI), as well as the Partner Mobile Laboratory coordinator.

Aja’s research and experience include air pollution, climate change, and source attribution, including planning air monitoring activities for both mobile and stationary monitoring. She has a Ph.D. in Physics from Curtin University, Australia with a focus on atmospheric pollution and transport, and a B.S. in Physics from the University of Nevada, Reno.

Before joining Aclima, Aja was an Air Quality Administrator in the Planning section at Allegheny County Health Department in Pittsburgh, PA, where she worked with academic collaborators to combine socioeconomic data and historic redlining maps to plan community air quality monitoring of present day pollutant exposure. As a Postdoctoral Researcher at Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Atmospheric Particle Studies, Aja led mobile air monitoring studies to map and quantify fugitive emissions from natural gas infrastructure.