PawelMisztal

Bio
Pawel K. Misztal is currently an assistant professor in the Fariborz Maseeh Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. His research group focuses on discoveries through time-resolved measurements of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the aspects of air quality and chemical interactions in the human environment. He was earlier an associate specialist in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Misztal has published more than 30 peer-reviewed papers, including research on ground-based direct VOC fluxes from tropical oil palm plantations and rainforest ecosystems in Borneo, and developed methodologies for enhanced detection of structural isomers for proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry. Misztal was responsible for planning, executing and processing the CABERNET airborne VOC flux campaign. He has demonstrated how isoprene emissions are distributed in California and led improvements to biogenic emission models to simulate these emissions in California accurately. He has been actively involved in the global chemistry community, working to discover new compound families from stressed plants and understanding the underlying processes, as well as the atmospheric fates of biogenic VOCs. He has recently devoted much of his work, in collaboration with UC Berkeley microbiologists, to understanding what controls microbial VOC (mVOC) emission rates from different environmental bacteria and fungi.

Educational Qualifications
PostDoc, Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California at Berkeley, 2015
Ph.D., Chemistry, The University of Edinburgh, 2010
M.S., Chemistry, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin, Poland, 2003
B.S., Chemistry and Physics, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin, Poland, 2001

Select Awards & Honors

• CAREER Award – National Science Foundation (2022) 
• Texas 10 Award – The University of Texas at Austin (2022) 
• Texas Academy of Medicine, Engineering, Science and Technology Protégé (2022) 
• Outstanding Reviewer Award – Biogeosciences (2018)

Related Websites
Misztal Research Group
Center for Energy and Environmental Resources

Select Publications