Ilias Kavouras, PhD - School of Public Health

Curriculum Vitae

About Ilias Kavouras, PhD

Ilias Kavouras, PhD, is Professor and Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Memphis School of Public Health. His research focuses on understanding the sources, physicochemical properties, and biological impacts of particulate matter and complex pollutant mixtures, including wildfire smoke, urban aerosols, and emissions from electronic cigarettes. The cornerstone of his work is the development and use of innovative methods to characterize exposures in real‑world environments and link them to respiratory, cardiovascular, and molecular outcomes. His studies of firefighters, individuals with asthma or COPD, and communities facing extreme heat and poor air quality have advanced understanding of exposure pathways and informed risk assessment, communication, and occupational health protections. His research also extends to climate change and health to evaluate climate‑related health risks, develop sentinel systems for climate‑biosphere interactions, and strengthen the public health workforce’s capacity to respond to emerging environmental threats. Key publications include: 

Selected Publications

1. Vorosmarty CL, Trujillo M, Casaccia P et al., A Climate BioStress Sentinel System: Identifying climate impacts from the genome to the urbanized biosphere. Cell Reports Sustainability, (2025) 2(11), 100558. 
2. Kelesidis GA, Moularas C, Parhizkar H, Calderon L, Tsiodra I, Mihalopoulos N, Kavouras I, Korras-Carraca MB, Hatzianastassiou N, Georgopoulos PG, Cedeño Laurent JG, Demokritou P. (2025). Radiative cooling in New York/New Jersey metropolitan areas by wildfire particulate matter emitted from the Canadian wildfires of 2023. Nature Communications, 6(1), 304. 
3. Lee BY, Pavilonis B, John DC, Heneghan J, Bartsch SM, Kavouras I. (2024). The Need to Focus More on Climate Change Communication and Incorporate More Systems Approaches. Journal of Health Communication, 29(sup1), 1–10. 
4. Hardell J, Silver EJ, Kavouras I, Lee DD, Gross E. (2023) Childhood asthma in Bronx, NY; the impact of pollutants on length of hospital stay. Journal of Asthma, 60(12):2160-2169 
5. Goldfarb D, Prezant D, Zeig-Owens R, Schwartz T, Kavouras IG. (2023) Development of a job-exposure matrix (JEM) for exposure to smoke particle mass among firefighters of the Fire Department of the City of New York (FDNY). Occupational and Environmental Medicine, oemed-2022-108549. 
6. Dada O, Castillo K, Hogan M, Chalbot MCC, Kavouras IG. (2022) Evidence of the coupling of nicotine, solvents, flavorings, and new particle formation in electronic cigarette vapors. Scientific Reports, 12(1):18571. 
7. Nelson J, Chalbot MCC, Pavicevic Z, Kavouras I (2020) Characterization of exhaled breath condensate non-exchangeable hydrogen functional types and lung function of wildland firefighters. Journal of Breath Research 14, 046010. 
8. Dada OM, Chalbot MCC, Kavouras IG (2020) Functional characterization of flavorings in electronic cigarette refill liquids by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. RSC Analytical Methods 12, 611-619 
9. Rodopoulou S, Samoli E, Chalbot M-C, Kavouras IG. (2015) Air pollution and cardiovascular and respiratory emergency visits in Central Arkansas. Science of the Total Environment 536, 872-879. 
10. Miousse-Racine I, Chalbot MCG, Pathak R, Lu X, Nzabarushimana E, Krager K, Aykin-Burns N, Hauer-Jensen M, Demokritou, P, Kavouras IG, Koturbash I. (2015) Exposure to soil dust results in hypomethylation and transcriptional activation of satellite DNA and leads to chromosomal aberrations in mouse macrophages. Toxicological Sciences 148 (2), 473-487. 
11. Chalbot M-C, Brown J, Chitranshi P, da Costa GG, Pollock ED, Kavouras IG (2014) Functional characterization of the water-soluble organic carbon of size fractionated aerosol in southern Mississippi Valley. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics 14, 6075-6088. 
12. Kavouras IG, Mihalopoulos N, Stephanou EG (1998) Formation of atmospheric particles from organic acids produced by forests. Nature 395, 683-686.