Anne C. Steinemann


Anne C. Steinemann is an American civil and environmental engineering academic who has specialized chiefly in the fields of "indoor air quality, product emissions, and exposure assessment" and "drought management, indicators, and information systems", with a focus on engineering and sustainability. Currently Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Melbourne, she has also advised numerous government and industry bodies in the United States and Australia and appeared widely in press, radio, television and website segments communicating her findings to the general public.

Early life and education

Steinemann was born on 29 September 1961 in San Diego County, California.
In 1984 she graduated from the University of California, Irvine with a B.S. in civil and environmental engineering. In 1985 she graduated from University of California, Los Angeles with a M.S. in civil and environmental engineering. In 1993 she was awarded a Ph.D. by Stanford University in civil and environmental engineering.

Career

Steinemann began her professional career as an Assistant/Associate Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Professor of Public Affairs at the University of Washington, and Program Manager at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
She was appointed as acting/visiting professor at Linköping University, Florida Institute of Technology, and Stanford University.
From 2015 she has been Professor of Civil Engineering, and Chair of Sustainable Cities, in the Department of Infrastructure Engineering at the University of Melbourne.

Pollutant exposures, indoor air quality, fragranced consumer products

Since 2007 Steinemann has focussed much of her research on "pollutant exposures and associated health effects, including topics of indoor air quality, consumer product testing and evaluation, exposure assessment, and healthy homes and communities".
She has published research papers and monographs on the health effects of fragranced products, concluding that those products "impair rather than improve indoor air quality" and "pose a range of health and economic risks."
Her nationally representative population studies found that 34.7% of adults in the USA, 33.0% in Australia, 33.1% in Sweden, and 27.8% of people in the United Kingdom report adverse health effects from exposure to fragranced products. Adverse health effects include asthma attacks, breathing difficulties, migraine headaches, dizziness, seizures, rashes, and gastrointestinal problems. The effects are also economic with "more than 20% of respondents entering a business, but leaving as quickly as possible if they smell air fresheners or some fragranced product".
She has found that emissions of carcinogenic pollutants from "green," "organic," and "all-natural" fragranced products were not significantly different from regular fragranced products.
Furthermore, she has noted that "relatively few ingredients of the fragranced product emissions" are "disclosed to the public", that "more than 156 VOCs were emitted from the 37 fragranced consumer products" examined by her, and that of those "156 VOCs, 42 VOCs were classified as toxic or hazardous under US federal laws, and each product emitted at least one of these chemicals." However, of more than 550 volatile ingredients emitted from these products, fewer than three percent were disclosed on any label or safety data sheet.

Awards

Books and monographs