Charles Stanier, associate professor of chemical and biochemical engineering, associate research engineer at IIHR-Hydroscience and Engineering, researcher at the Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research, has been appointed to the USDA Agricultural Air Quality Task Force (AAQTF).

He will serve a two-year term from 2016-2018.  The task force is composed of representatives from agriculture, industry, academia, government agencies, non-governmental organizations and other agricultural and environmental experts.

Stanier also is a researcher at the UI Environmental Health Sciences Research Center and is affiliated with the UI Informatics Initiative.

The Agricultural Air Quality Task Force promotes USDA research efforts and identifies cost-effective ways the agriculture industry can improve air quality. It also helps better coordinate activities and resources among USDA agencies and other federal partners such as the Environmental Protection Agency.

The task force advises the Secretary of Agriculture on air quality and its relationship to agriculture based on sound scientific findings; reviews research on agricultural air quality supported by federal agencies; promotes intergovernmental (federal, state, local and tribal) coordination in establishing agricultural air quality policy to avoid duplication of efforts; and ensures that air quality conservation practices supported by USDA are based on peer reviewed research and are economically feasible for agricultural producers.

The task force was formed in 1996 at the direction of Congress to address agricultural air quality issues. Chaired by Jason Weller, chief of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service, this is the ninth task force since the first was assembled in 1997.