Yi Zhang was named the winner of the 2023 Ian McCrae Award at the Routes to Clean Air air quality conference on the 11th October.
This annual award takes the form of an essay competition that is open to early careers members of the IAQM. It is presented in honour of the late Dr Ian McCrae who made significant contributions to the understanding of emissions from transport and their links with air quality.
This year, entrants were asked to submit an essay on the following topic:
Earlier this year, local authorities were allotted funding to improve air quality. If you were to be allocated funding, what key initiatives would you pursue to improve air quality in your local area?
Yi Zhang, Graduate Air Quality Consultant at Buro Happold, was awarded the prize due to their well-written submission which explored measures that could be put in place in the London Borough of Camden to improve the local air quality. A number of initiatives were proposed to target with available funding, including stakeholder and community engagement, improving active mobility and cross-regional collaboration, to lead to tangible improvements in air quality across the borough. The judges were particularly impressed with Yi's understanding of the local area and for providing a strong argument for the initiatives selected.
Read the winning submission (pdf)
Thank you to everyone who submitted; we received a number of high quality submissions. Please do keep an eye out for next year’s topic for another chance to win this prestigious title.
