Workshop on Bioaerosols in the Earth System; Fort Collins, Colorado; February 2025

This workshop has been organized to investigate the state of knowledge about bioaerosols in the Earth system. Many gaps exist in the basic understanding of factors that shape the microbial composition of ambient bioaerosols and their resultant impacts after transport in the atmosphere and deposition to the surface. The goal of this workshop is to leverage the expertise among the diverse participants to distill recent findings, discover synergistic approaches and innovative solutions to tackle difficult but critical scientific gaps, and provide their expert opinions on the most compelling research opportunities that will lead to high impact scientific discovery and advancements in the knowledge about bioaerosols in the Earth system. Three co-chairs from the fields of atmospheric science, biological science, and engineering represent the multidisciplinary aspects of the issue of bioaerosols and will serve as organizers of the conference. The findings from this workshop will serve to highlight gaps in understanding, observations, technology, and predictive capabilities that are hindering scientific progress, and will be disseminated to encourage new interdisciplinary research aimed at filling these gaps. The co-chairs plan to communicate workshop findings in the peer-reviewed literature. This workshop is supported by the following programs at NSF: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physical and Dynamic Meteorology in GEO; Population and Community Ecology Cluster, Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases, Ecosystem Science, and Symbiosis, Infection and Immunity in BIO; and Nanoscale Interactions, Environmental Engineering, and Environmental Sustainability in ENG. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.