Dr. Kirchstetter is a Senior Scientist, Director of the Energy Analysis and Environmental Impacts Division, and Interim Director of the Cyclotron Road Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He holds a concurrent appointment as an Adjunct Professor in Civil & Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley, where he teaches courses and mentors undergraduate and graduate student researchers. Kirchstetter has served as an editor of the journals Aerosol Science & Technology and Atmospheric Chemistry & Physics and organizer of the International Conference on Carbonaceous Particles in the Atmosphere.
Kirchstetter entered the DOE national laboratory system as a student intern at Brookhaven National Lab in 1992. After earning a PhD in Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley, Kirchstetter won the DOE Alexander Hollaender Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellowship in 1998 and began conducting atmospheric aerosol research under the mentorship of Tihomir Novakov at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Kirchstetter is well known for his research on the optical properties of carbonaceous aerosols and the characterization of motor vehicle emissions and control technologies. His current research interests in air pollution science and technology include the evaluation of in-use performance of vehicle emission controls, environmental impacts of freight transportation and decarbonization, inventing and benchmarking air pollution sensors, air pollution monitoring in communities, and climate and air pollution footprints of municipal solid waste-to-energy.