Fradaus Rahaman
Fardaus is a key member of the modelling team at PAEHolmes Sydney office and provides essential support on many of PAEHolmes project. He has several years of consulting experience specialising in air quality.
His particular expertise is in the assessment of complex flows using CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) techniques but also experienced in a range of air quality assessment for numerous industrial projects. He also has widespread experience in emission estimation for NPI reporting. As an air quality engineer, he is skilled in a variety of computational models including CALPUFF, CALMET, TAPM, AUSPLUME, BPIP, ISCMOD, CFX and AVL_Swift.
Since joining PAEHolmes in 2008, he worked on a large number of air quality studies for industrial projects in the mining and energy sectors and performed a variety of odour impact assessments for facilities including waste treatment plants, landfills, piggeries, chicken farms and fast food outlets. He plays a key role in assisting clients to gain developmental approvals from regulatory authorities.
Prior to joining PAE, Fardaus worked as a Research Fellow at University of South Australia and as a CFD Consultant for CFD Australia Pty. Ltd. In these roles, he was involved in a range of long-term and short-term projects on emissions measurement and control, and waste energy management, gasification and combustion.
Fardaus obtained his PhD from Swinburne University of Technology in Victoria. His research findings were presented and published in several international conference proceedings and well-known journals.
Robin Smit
Robin has over 14 years’ experience consulting on air pollution and climate issues both here in Australia and in Europe.
He consults on all areas of air quality management, and has a particular expertise on emissions from mobile sources such as road traffic, aircraft, shipping and rail.
In assessing road traffic emissions, Robin embraces a multidisciplinary approach including transport modelling, emission modelling and dispersion modelling – at local, regional and national scales.
Related work includes assessing the impact of biofuels on vehicle emissions.
In Europe, Robin developed an innovative road traffic emission and fuel consumption model using multivariate regression techniques.
As an authority on traffic emissions, Robin considers it vital that governments continue to focus on road traffic pollution in its urban planning.
“Around the world, traffic is the dominant source of air pollution and unfortunately this is growing as car ownership increases and vehicle kilometres travelled per capita increases along with it,” he says.
“More people with more cars, making more and longer trips all contribute to a rise in pollution levels in cities and an increase in greenhouse gas emissions.
Not only do vehicles emit large volumes of pollutants, they do so in close proximity to people and its effects can be felt on a very personal level.”
Robin rejoined PAE in early 2008 after a period working in the Netherlands as a consultant, project manager and research scientist. He has worked for scientific organisations such as TNO Environmental Studies & Testing and the National Institute of Public Health and the Environment – RIVM; as well as engineering firms Tebodin Consultants & Engineers and DHV Environment & Infrastructure.
Robin completed his Ph.D. in 2006, studying the relationships between road traffic emission models and congestion and their application to urban networks.
His work on modelling of road traffic emissions has been published in international scientific journals such as Atmospheric Environment and Transportation Research Part D, as well as in Australian and New Zealand journals (Road and Transport Research, Air Quality and Climate Change). He has also presented at various conferences (e.g. Australasian Transport Research Forum 2009, Air Pollution XVI 2008) and has recently presented two sessions on ‘vehicle technology and emissions’ and ‘modelling of transport emissions’ at the short course “Climate Change, Energy, Emissions & Transport” (September 2009) organized by Queensland University of Technology.
James Steele
Aleks Todoroski
Francine Triffett
Francine Triffett has a BA (Resource and Environmental Management) degree from Macquarie University and is an air quality consultant with PAEHolmes. She has experience in using a range of air emissions models, including AUSPLUME, ISC, CALPUFF, CALINE and TAPM and has worked on various projects related to odour, transport, industrial and mining assessments, meteorological and air quality monitoring, data processing and analysis, report writing, client liaison and research projects.
Francine has been involved in various major projects such as the Australian Coal Association Research Program (ACARP), a range of large-scale mining projects in the Hunter Valley, and projects for the RTA.
Bethany Warren