Viney Aneja is a Professor and was the Co-Director of Graduate Programs (2016 to 2020) in the Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences, North Carolina State University. He obtained his B. Tech. degree in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Department of Chemical Engineering, N.C. State University, Raleigh, NC.
Before joining the faculty of the Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences at N.C. State in 1987, he conducted and supervised research at Corporate Research and Development, General Electric Company, New York; and Northrop Services, in Research Triangle Park, NC, in the areas of environmental science and engineering, and separations technology. In 2001 he was also appointed Professor of Environmental Technology, in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources.
In addition, he was a visiting professor at the University of Uppsala, Sweden in 1979; at the Arrhenius Laboratory in Stockholm, Sweden in 1985 and 2015; and at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India, in 2015. In 2015 he was awarded the position of the Rossby Visiting Fellow at the University of Stockholm, Sweden; and that of the Indira Foundation Distinguished Visiting Fellow at TERI University, New Delhi, India. He was recently recognized in the Stanford University 2021 list of the world’s top 2% scientists. In 2022 he was selected to be the Official Nominator of the VinFuture Prize 2022, the world’s largest science and technology prize valued at $3 million.
Dr. Aneja’s industrial and academic research contributions have been extensively recognized. He won the Noryl Division Proprietary Innovation Award from General Electric in 1983, the Air Pollution Control Association Award for Distinguished Service in 1984, and the General Electric Managerial Innovation Award in 1986. At North Carolina State University, he received the 1991- 92 Outstanding Extension Service Award. In 1998, the Air and Waste Management Association gave him its Frank A. Chambers Award, the Association’s highest scientific honor; in 1999 he became a Fellow of the Association; and in 2001 he received the Association’s Lyman A. Ripperton Award for distinguished achievement as an educator. He is the recipient of the 2007 North Carolina Award in Science, the highest award a civilian can receive from the Governor of North Carolina. In 2009, he received the Senior National Research Council (NRC) Research Associateship. In 2010, he received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India. In 2010, he was invited by the U.S. White House Council on Environmental Quality to assist in the BP Gulf Spill investigation and assessment.
He was appointed to the NC Secretaries’ Science Advisory Board in 2017. He serves on the Executive Committee of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Board of Scientific Counselors (BOSC) (2014 to present), and as a Chair of the BOSC Subcommittee for Air, Climate, and Energy (ACE) research program, 2014-2017. The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture appointed him as a member of the U.S. Agricultural Air Quality Task Force, 2001-2008. He was a member of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board Environmental Engineering Committee; a Member of U.S. EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) Advisory Committees on Sustainability Research Strategy and Multi-Year Plan, 2006-2007; the Aging Drinking Water and Waste Water Infrastructure Research Initiative, 2009; the Integrated Nitrogen Committee, 2006-2010; the Committee on Hydraulic Fracturing, 2010; and served as a Member of EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) Panel on Estimating Air Emissions from Animal Feeding Operations, 2012-2013. The Governor of the State of North Carolina, Mike Easley, appointed him as a Member of NC Governor’s Task Force on Hazardous Materials, 2006-2007. He is a Member Representative of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO.
At North Carolina State University, Dr. Aneja has developed one of the nation’s leading agricultural air-quality and climate research programs (http://go.ncsu.edu/airquality). He has authored or co-authored over 200 scientific papers, 132 book chapters and conference proceedings scientific papers, 47 technical reports, five US patents, three books pertaining to his research; and 550 conference presentations/invited seminars/lectures. Dr. Aneja has directed 9 post-doctoral fellows, 20 students preparing doctoral dissertations, and 45 students preparing their masters’ theses. The number of his publication citations from Google Scholar is 9663; h-index is 53; and the i10-index is 151.
Much of his work has focused on the science needed to make important decisions on environmental, sustainability, and climate policies in North Carolina and the nation. He has conducted research on natural and anthropogenic (i.e., originating from human activity) emissions of nitric oxide, ammonia, and sulfur compounds and has demonstrated the important roles of these substances in ozone formation and gas-to-particle conversion. His research on atmospheric photochemical oxidants in the North Carolina mountains has clarified the role of long-range transport of pollutants and impact of these compounds on the formation of acid rain and on the damage to trees at high elevation. His most recent research has concentrated on the critical issue of the contribution of concentrated animal feeding operations (also known as CAFOs) to air
quality, and wildfires; and quantifying the emissions, transformation, transport and fate of pollutants in the environment, and climate. His contributions have been featured on media outlets including CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, National Public Radio, Public Broadcasting Service, The New York Times, The Raleigh News&Observer, Associated Press, Bloomberg News, Environmental Manager, Fortune magazine, and The Wire (India), among others.
Dr. Aneja’s research has enjoyed support from a broad base of public and private sources. While conducting his extensive research, Dr. Aneja has maintained a heavy teaching load. He teaches a large and popular introductory course (Introduction to Weather and Climate), and one upper division air quality course (Fundamentals of Air Quality and Climate Change) and has also given numerous short courses to public and private sector audiences.
Dr. Aneja has also had a long and distinguished record of public service, and he has been frequently sought as a lecturer and consultant to the Federal and State governments, professional societies, international organizations, and the private sector on issues related to environmental science and public policy. In 2000, he was a member of the North Carolina Delegation to the Netherlands on Agricultural Air Quality; in 2001, he was leader of the U.S. Department of State Delegation to France on Environment Science and Technology; and during 2013, he served as the leader for the US Department of Agriculture to Rothamsted, UK, on International Research Program on Agricultural Nitrogen.
He served as a Director of the Air and Waste Management Association, and Chair of the Association’s Education Council; served as a member of the Technical Advisory Committee of the North Carolina Environmental Defense Fund; and served as a member of the North Carolina Progress Board. He currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Atmosphere: Air Pollution Control, and currently serves as Editorial Board Member of the international journals Atmosphere; Pollutants; Air; International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health; and Environmental Science; and Associate Editor for the International Journal of Air Quality, Atmosphere, and Health; International Journal of Applied Environmental Sciences; International Journal of Atmospheric Pollution Research; MDPI Open Access Publishing (Switzerland); and the Journal of Environmental Research and Management; Honoraray Advisory Board Member for the journal Anthropocene Science; and on the Reader Advisory Panel of Nature, and The Washington Post Advisory Panel. He has served on the editorial boards of the journals Environmental Pollution, Chemosphere, Journal of the Air and Waste Management Association, and Environmental Management.