Gabriel Isaacman-VanWertz awarded faculty fellowship
Gabriel Isaacman-VanWertz, associate professor of environmental engineering in the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, has been awarded the Anthony and Catherine Moraco Endowed Faculty Fellowship by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors.
The Anthony and Catherine Moraco Endowed Faculty Fellowship in Civil and Environmental Engineering was established in 2018 with a gift from the Moracos.
A member of the Virginia Tech community for almost 10 years, Isaacman-VanWertz is a nationally recognized faculty member in environmental engineering, specializing in air quality. His research focuses on organic compounds in the air — how they are emitted, how they transform, and how they impact health and ecosystems. He is particularly interested in developing new ways to measure and analyze hazardous air pollutants.
He has directed or co-directed over $9 million of externally funded research at Virginia Tech with a personal share of over $5 million. His 75 peer-reviewed publications have been cited more than 5,700 times.
Isaacman-VanWertz has been honored with the Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize from the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Whitby Award from the American Association of Aerosol Research for excellence in aerosol science. He was also chosen as a Dean’s Fellow in the College of Engineering in 2024. As a Fulbright Scholar, he spent the 2023-24 academic year living in Ecuador with his family while he researched air pollution.
In the classroom, Isaacman-VanWertz teaches a wide variety of undergraduate and graduate courses about atmospheric chemistry, project-based sensors, and environmental engineering. He also serves as a chair for the Interfaces of Global Change Interdisciplinary Graduate Education Program.
Isaacman-VanWertz received his bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University and a Ph.D. from the University of California at San Diego.
