Air Quality Technician/Technologist

As an air quality technician/technologist, you deal with all types of air pollution that can affect every aspect of our environment. Air quality technicians/technologists monitor, assess, and report on ambient air quality in both urban and rural areas, as well as air quality in environmental emergency situations such as fires or chemical spills. Air pollutants are often considered insidious because they can be harmful even when many people can’t see them and don’t know they are there. Your job is to measure air pollutants so that accurate assessments can be made with respect to the effects of the pollutants on humans and the environment.

At a Glance

Imagine it is a crisp summer morning and you are riding shotgun in a small helicopter as it crests a forested ridge in the Rocky Mountains. In the distance, you see the smoke from a large forest fire burning out of control: that's where you are headed. You are an air quality technician/technologist and you have been dispatched to the area to collect air samples from around the burn and samples of the fire's smoke.

This fire is far enough away from the nearest town that residents aren't being evacuated yet, but you are keeping a close eye on the town's air quality. If there is too much smoke in the air that it becomes harmful for the townspeople to breathe, they will need to be evacuated farther from the fire. As an air quality technician/technologist, you collect air samples that will be used to determine if the ambient air in the nearby town is still safe for residents to breathe. You have already assembled and calibrated several small aerometric monitoring stations at various places in and around the town.

These sophisticated machines continuously measure the ambient air quality and transmit the data to scientists monitoring the situation, enabling them to decide if it is safe for the townspeople to stay in their homes. Now that these sampling stations are in place, you will check them periodically to make sure they are functioning properly. In the meantime, you will also deploy sampling equipment closer to the fire and collect samples of the smoke itself. This information will be helpful not only for the townspeople, but for the firefighters, so they know what kind of equipment they need. You collect the information that will keep everyone safe.

Air Quality Technician/Technologist

At a Glance

Job Duties

Work Environment

Where to Work

Education and Skills

Role Models

Melissa Nadeau

Your Impact

Occupational Classification

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