Dr Stephen Brown is a Principal Research Scientist at CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, where he provides leading expertise in indoor air quality sciences for Sustainable Cities. Initially an industrial chemist in the plastics and rubber industry, he joined CSIRO 30 years ago to lead research into a range of air quality sciences, such as smoke and toxic gases from building fires and bushfires, controlling exposure to asbestos in buildings, establishing indoor air quality goals, State of Environment reporting, pollutant emissions from building materials and contents and baseline assessment of air quality in Australian buildings. Currently, his research is focussed on integrating indoor air quality (IAQ) into specification of sustainable buildings for the CRC for Construction Innovation.
Dr Brown has led significant national projects, such as Worksafe Australia's ‘Controlling asbestos hazards in buildings', NHMRC's ‘Goals for VOCs in indoor air', ACT Governments ‘Review of asbestos program', Environment Australia's SoE reports on IAQ and Dept. Human Services ‘Pollutants emitted from unflued gas heaters'. He has also participated in international research projects and textbooks on control of IAQ. He is past-Chairperson of the Special Interest Group on Indoor Air Quality for the Clean Air Society of Australia and New Zealand (CASANZ). He contributed to enHealth's ‘Healthy Homes' booklet, an educational guideline for consumers, and the CRC for Construction Innovation's ‘Your Building', a web portal on sustainable building design. Currently, he is a Certified Occupational Hygenist with the Australian Institute of Occupational Hygenists, and in 2006 he introduced a Chapter on ‘Indoor Air Quality' into the Institute's ‘Principles of Occupational Health & Hygiene', a textbook for universities and OHS professionals.
Dr Brown has published over 120 scientific papers, and presented 15 international conference papers in the last 5 years, as well as lectures to students and community groups. His recent publications include papers on source models for control of pollutant emissions from major building materials and contents (paints, wood-based panels, office equipment, unflued gas heaters), exposure levels to volatile organics in indoor air (buildings, cars), assessment and control of house dust mites in buildings, design of healthy buildings, sampling protocols for assessment of indoor air pollution and bushfire air toxics. In 1999, he received the prestigious Grimwade Prize in Industrial Chemistry from Melbourne University for his contribution to industrial chemistry in Australia.
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