CCEE master’s student Mila Yutskevych wins second place in poster competition

CCEE master’s student Mila (Liudmyla) Yutskevych, advised by Department Head Jackie Gibson and Professor Andrew Grieshop, won second place in the Outstanding Student Poster Competition at The International Society of Indoor Air Quality and Climate Conference Indoor Air 2024 in Hawaii. 

Yutskevych’s poster, titled “Sick Building Syndrome, Indoor Air Quality and Related Health Effects: A Systematic Literature Review,” looks at concerns that public health agencies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had about sick building syndrome (SBS) due to public complaints and the rapid transformation of the built environment that has occurred over the past quarter century. 

“Our research aims to establish evidence-based links between SBS and Indoor Air Quality (IAQ), and identify knowledge gaps, and analyze potential regional differences in links between SBS and specific IAQ factors,” she explained.

Yutskevych said it “felt incredible” to be recognized for her poster. 

“This research offers a systematized analysis of the connections between pollutants and IAQ factors and SBS symptoms regarding the different climates, building types, and identification of the most common pollutants, allowing us to better understand the connections between the indoor environment and human health,” she said. “It also discovered the big gap in this area, mainly the inconsistency in terminology, research methods, and measurement techniques, which has to be addressed in the near future.”

Yutskevych, whose research focuses on environmental engineering and air quality, was born and grew up in the small town Smila in the Cherkasy region of Ukraine, and moved to Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2007, where she lived until 2022. She is a Fulbright Scholar and a member of NC State’s International Student Advisory Council.