Air Quality Specialist

Air quality specialists' work includes a variety of tasks having to do with air quality monitoring, air pollution inspections, regulation, law enforcement, and planning.

Summary

As an air quality specialist, you might spend one morning programming a computer and that afternoon talking to citizens and politicians at a public hearing. Most jobs involve collecting data, analyzing it, and preparing it for written reports or oral presentations. But air quality specialists also work with people, giving technical assistance to individuals and groups and presenting reports at meetings and hearings. They help to write, evaluate and revise environmental impact statements. They also participate in planning processes that might involve computer modeling and other prediction tools.

Pollution control agencies at federal, state and local levels and other government bodies, such as transportation departments, employ air quality specialists. So do some private companies responsible for preventing or controlling pollution, as well as engineering firms that work on air quality planning and pollution prevention and control.

Educational Requirements

A fundamental requirement is knowledge of physics, environmental science, chemistry, meteorology, and/or atmospheric science. Jobs in air quality typically require a bachelor’s degree in physical sciences, environmental science, engineering, or related area. People moving on in this profession gain more technical knowledge of modeling, data interpretation, program evaluation, planning techniques, and laws and regulations.

Salary Information 2022

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median salary of an Air Quality Specialist in 2022 was $76,530.

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Information retrieved from Cengage: Air Quality Specialist.