FAMU partners with Aura Air, a leading global provider of smart air technology based in Israel, to establish a Center of Excellence (COE) in Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) in the School of the Environment.
Americans spend 90 percent of their time indoors where the levels of pollutants frequently can exceed those found outdoors. Pollutants from tobacco, cleaning products, building materials, outdoor air pollution that enters buildings and homes, including wildfire smoke and mold can lead to a variety of health effects, including respiratory problems including COVID and the worsening of asthma.
Given the growing number of natural disasters Florida, and the nation, have experienced lately as a result of climate change the number of microbiological air pollutants from these disasters are on the have had a lingering public health effect on communities across our nation.
The COE for IAQ will recommend methods and technology to effectively improve indoor air quality with active air monitoring, filtering, and ventilation. FAMU is already conducting research with several of Aura Air’s patented purification devices on campus.
The Center will be interdisciplinary and involve faculty from the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, as well as other faculty across campus.
This partnership is historic, I believe “to take a global company from Israel to work with one of the leading HBCU’s to help the world with indoor air quality,” said Roei Friedberg, CEO of Aura Air Americas. “Our goal is to take the experience, expertise and knowledge of FAMU together with the technology, innovation and global partnerships of Aura Air to establish a place that will do research and make recommendations to tell the world how to address the future challenges,” said Friedberg.
Our goal is to create a place where industry leaders, government agencies, and policy makers can become partners in this initiative. “Given the health threats posed by COVID-19, influenza A and RSV, we want to our use research and data to help them make better decisions or change policies. It could be another global pandemic; it could be energy efficiency challenges that we’re facing,” Friedberg said.