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Chris Frey

Associate Dean for Research and Infrastructure, College of Engineering, and Futrell Distinguished University Professor, Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering

Associate Dean for Research and Infrastructure, College of Engineering

Fitts-Woolard Hall NA

Bio

Dr. Chris Frey is the Associate Dean for Research and Infrastructure of the College of Engineering, and the Glenn E. and Phyllis J. Futrell Distinguished University Professor of environmental engineering in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering, at North Carolina State University. His research includes measurement and modeling of human exposure to air pollution, measurement and modeling of vehicle emissions, probabilistic and sensitivity analysis methods, and probabilistic assessment of power generation environmental technologies. He has led over 70 research studies, published over 150 peer reviewed journal papers, and delivered over 200 invited talks nationally and internationally. He has taught courses on air pollution control, air quality, environmental exposure and risk assessment, transportation energy and emissions, civil engineering systems, and sustainable infrastructure. Dr. Frey has been on the faculty at NCSU for over 30 years.

Dr. Frey was on leave from NCSU from February 1, 2021 to September 30, 2024 to serve at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He was appointed by President Biden as Deputy Assistant Administrator for Science Policy on February 1, 2021, providing strategic direction for EPA research and science policy. Dr. Frey was subsequently nominated by President Biden and confirmed by the United States Senate as Assistant Administrator for Research and Development of the U.S. EPA, a role in which he served from May 25, 2022 to September 30, 2024. He led the EPA Office of Research and Development, with an annual budget of over $500M, over 1500 Federal FTE, and 12 locations across the U.S. with a mission to develop and translate science to inform decisions within the Agency and of Agency partners including states, Tribes, local and territorial governments, and communities. He also served as the Agency’s Science Advisor.

Dr. Frey had previously interacted with U.S. EPA in numerous science roles. He was a AAAS/EPA Environmental Science and Engineering Fellow at ORD’s National Center for Environmental Assessment in 1992 and served a one year IPA assignment as exposure modeling advisor in ORD’s National Exposure Research Laboratory from 2006 to 2007. He was a member of the EPA FIFRA Scientific Advisory Panel (2004 to 2006), a member of the EPA Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) (2008 to 2012), chair of CASAC (2012 to 2015), and a member of the EPA Science Advisory Board (2012 to 2018). He chaired CASAC reviews of lead, nitrogen dioxide, and ozone, and has served on CASAC review panels for all criteria pollutants regulated under the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. He was a member of the CASAC Particulate Matter Review Panel that was dismissed in 2018: under his leadership, the panel reconvened as the Independent Particulate Matter Review Panel.

Dr. Frey has had numerous other science advising and expert roles, including serving on National Research Council (NRC) committees, on the NRC Board of Environmental Studies and Toxicology, on a World Health Organization (WHO) working group on uncertainty in exposure assessment, as a contributor to the U.S. Department of Transportation report to Congress on Transportation’s Role in Reducing U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions, as a contributor to NARSTO reports on emission inventories and air quality management, and as an expert and lead author on uncertainty for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Guidelines on National Greenhouse Gas Emissions. He was a member of the Transportation and Air Quality Committee (ADC20) of the Transportation Research Board and the Publications and Critical Review committees of the Air & Waste Management Association. In 2018, he wrote and delivered the 48th Annual A&WMA Critical Review on “Trends in Onroad Transportation Energy and Emissions.”

Dr. Frey is a Fellow of the Air & Waste Management Association (A&WMA) and of the Society for Risk Analysis (SRA), served on the A&WMA Board of Directors (2015-2018), and was President of SRA in 2006. He received the Chauncey Starr Award from SRA in 1999, the Lyman A. Ripperton Award from A&WMA in 2012, and the Frank A. Chambers Award from A&WMA in 2019. He has a B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Virginia, a master of engineering in mechanical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, and Ph.D. in engineering and public policy from Carnegie Mellon.

Education

Ph.D. Engineering and Public Policy Carnegie Mellon University 1991

M.S. Mechanical Engineering Carnegie Mellon University 1987

B.S. Mechanical Engineering University of Virginia 1985

Area(s) of Expertise

Dr. Frey is interested in air pollution emissions, prevention and control; measurement and modeling of activity, energy use, and emissions of on-road and non-road vehicles; exposure and risk analysis; quantification of variability and uncertainty; modeling and evaluation of energy conversion and emission control technologies.

Publications

View all publications 

Grants

Date: 08/01/18 - 7/31/21
Amount: $338,515.00
Funding Agencies: NC Department of Transportation

Autonomous vehicle (AV) technology is expected to fundamentally change transportation systems. The Transportation Planning Branch at NCDOT, which is responsible for the state??????????????????s long-range transportation plan, needs state-of-the-art information and predictions on AV technology and its potential impacts on transport to be better prepared for the upcoming changes and maximize the social benefits that this technology will enable. The Transportation Systems group faculty (Drs. Bardaka, List, Rouphail, and Williams) and Dr. Frey (Environmental Engineering) in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering at NCSU as well as Dr. Cummings, the Director of the Humans and Autonomy Laboratory at Duke University will work together to leverage existing research in the area of AV technology to evaluate impacts and provide policy and future research recommendations to NCDOT. The study will include a comprehensive literature review on AV technology and its impact on transportation demand, capacity, mobility, traffic safety, emissions, energy use, and land use. The results of previous research will be analyzed and case studies for North Carolina will be developed. The study will also provide recommendations to NCDOT regarding changes in policies and regulations, future test plans and test infrastructure, and research priorities in the area of AV technology. As part of this study, the researchers will work closely with the Transportation Planning Branch to provide guidance on how existing models (such as the statewide demand model) could be adapted to account for the presence of AVs.

Date: 08/01/17 - 8/15/19
Amount: $219,996.00
Funding Agencies: NC Department of Transportation

NCDOT owns six F59PH diesel locomotives. NCDOT is committed to providing an energy efficient and environmentally friendly alternative for travelers. NCDOT is exploring the use of alternative fuels and retrofitted emission control technologies. Furthermore, NCDOT has made extensive capital improvements to the rail corridor, including removing grade crossings and other updates that eventually will improve travel speed. Field measurements of locomotive energy use and emissions are needed to assess fuels and retrofit technologies, and to develop planning-level models to assess the benefits of corridor capital improvements for energy use and emissions.

Date: 01/01/17 - 5/31/19
Amount: $65,864.00
Funding Agencies: US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Our proposal will determine the most important variables that explain spatial and temporal variance of near road traffic-related pollutant concentrations: We will explore the relative influence of traffic activity, the built environment (roadways and other built structures), and environmental (e.g. temperature, wind and background concentrations) factors on multi-pollutant transport, differential evolution and how all of these influence human exposure. We will also demonstrate novel surrogates of near-road traffic-related pollution: We will develop data and modeling approaches to quantify exposure concentrations of multiple pollutants emitted from vehicles or formed as secondary pollutants in the near-roadway microenvironment: fine particulate matter (PM), ultrafine particles (UPF), semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs), nitrogen dioxide, and carbon monoxide. The role of individual pollutants and mixtures of pollutants, and whether some pollutants are good surrogates for others, will be assessed. We will improve inputs for exposure models for traffic-related health: We will explore the implications of our measurement findings by applying them in spatial and temporal analysis of the relationship between human exposure (or surrogates for human exposure) and adverse effects, including evaluation of mixtures of pollutants and other proxies for exposure

Date: 10/01/15 - 8/30/18
Amount: $649,977.00
Funding Agencies: US Dept. of Energy (DOE)

The National Transportation Center at the University of Maryland (NTC@Maryland) with Arizona State University, North Carolina State University, and the University of Florida, supported by Google, Uber, RubyRide, INRIX, TomTom, HERE, and State Departments of Transportation in Maryland, North Carolina, and Florida, proposes an Integrated, Personalized, REal-time Traveler Information and Incentive (iPretii) technology that encompasses: a) A person-level travel behavior, traffic simulator, and energy estimator called the System Model (SM); and b) A Control Architecture (CA) with personalized signal design based on behavioral research, user intent prediction, signal optimization, and signal delivery modules. We envision that iPretii will enable public and private-sector entities to deliver personalized incentives to guide a subset of travelers to adjust both their driving behavior and choices of route, departure time, and mode. These personalized incentives minimize energy consumption by optimizing driving style, mitigating congestion, and increasing vehicle occupancy. iPretii will be developed within two years to quantify possible energy efficiency gains in the Washington, DC-Baltimore megaregion with a population of 8.3 million, under recurrent and non-recurrent congestion (e.g., accidents, work zones, adverse weather). Multiple field tests are designed to identify and address technology gaps, and to demonstrate iPretii readiness for real-world implementation.

Date: 03/01/18 - 5/15/18
Amount: $19,998.00
Funding Agencies: US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Since 2008, Dr. Frey??????????????????s research group at NC State has measured the activity, fuel use, and emission rates of light duty gasoline vehicles using GlobalMRV Axion portable emission measurement systems (PEMS). Each vehicle has been measured on four designated routes in the Research Triangle Park, NC region. We will review our legacy data for each vehicle and convert the data to a consistent format for delivery to the sponsor. This project will focus on demonstrating our procedures for preparing data for delivery to EPA, on identifying the vehicles for which we have data, and on delivering data for 180 vehicles. The focus of this project is on light duty gasoline vehicles, fueled with retail gasoline (E10). We will deliver an Excel file or a .cvs file for each vehicle. We will provide a summary table of the metadata for each vehicle.


View all grants 
  • Nominated by President Biden and Confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Assistant Administrator of the Office of Research and Development at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
  • Alcoa Foundation Distinguished Engineering Research Award
  • Frank A. Chambers Excellence in Air Pollution Control Award from the Air & Waste Management Association
  • Excellence in Review Award from Environmental Science & Technology
  • Lyman A. Ripperton Environmental Educator Award from the Air & Waste Management Association
  • Fellow, Air & Waste Management Association
  • NCSU Alumni Association Outstanding Research Award
  • Fellow, Society for Risk Analysis
  • Chauncey Starr Award, Society for Risk Analysis, in recognition of exceptional contributions to the field of Risk Analysis