Academic Credentials
  • Ph.D., Environmental Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 2018
  • M.S., Environmental Engineering, University of Southern California, 2013
  • B.Tech., Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, 2011
Academic Appointments
  • Visiting Scientist, Nanoscience and Advanced Materials Center, Rutgers University School of Public Health, 2022–present
Professional Honors
  • Travel Award, QEEN II Workshop (Quantifying Exposure to Engineered Nanomaterials from Manufactured Products), U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) and Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), Oct 2018
  • Winner, Abstract Booklet Image Contest, Harvard Chan Poster Day, Apr 2017
  • Travel Grant, Harvard-National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) Center for Environmental Health, Dec 2016
  • Honorable Mention for publication in Toxicological Sciences, Society of Toxicology (SOT), Nov 2016
  • Travel Award, Sustainable Nanotechnology Organization (SNO) Conference, Nov 2016
  • Joseph D. Brain Fellowship Fund Scholarship, Department of Environmental Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Sep 2015
  • New Investigator Award, QEEN Workshop (Quantifying Exposure to Engineered Nanomaterials from Manufactured Products), U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) and Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), Jul 2015
  • Engineering Scholarship Award, American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) California Los Angeles County Chapter, May 2013
  • The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi, May 2013
  • Engineering Scholarship Award, American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) California Los Angeles County Chapter, May 2012
Professional Affiliations
  • American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA)
  • American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA), Northern California Section

Dr. Dilpreet Singh is an environmental engineer and health scientist who specializes in the design and development of lab-based platforms and approaches for assessing lifecycle exposures to engineered nanomaterials and incidental nanoparticles in occupational, consumer product use and environmental settings and associated human health risks. In his doctoral and postdoctoral research, Dr. Singh performed extensive physicochemical, morphological and toxicological characterization of engineered nanomaterial exposures from nano-enabled consumer and industrial products such as thermoplastic polymers, paints, coatings and building insulation materials across different relevant lifecycle scenarios such as sanding (mechanical degradation), accelerated UV aging (environmental weathering) and end-of-life scenarios such as waste incineration, accidental building fires and open waste burning. Dr. Singh is also a part-time instructor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health where he instructs the "New Developments in Nanotechnology" module of the annual executive course "Comprehensive Industrial Hygiene: The Application of Basic Principles" attended by environmental health and safety professionals.

Dr. Singh has conducted numerous studies involving exposure characterization and toxicological evaluation of incidental and environmental nanoparticles such as those generated from toner-based photocopiers and laser printers, vaping of electronic cigarette devices with different e-liquids and operational voltages, and burning of hardwoods and softwoods under different combustion conditions in wood stoves and wildfires. Most recently, Dr. Singh's research focused on the synthesis and characterization of model micro-nano-plastic particles produced from different environmentally relevant degradation scenarios such as cryo-milling (simulating mechanical fragmentation), accelerated UV aging (simulating outdoor weathering) and incineration (simulating thermal decomposition), followed by investigation of their interactions with environmental co-contaminants such as heavy metals, pesticides and endocrine disrupting chemicals and assessment of potential gastrointestinal and systemic toxicological effects arising from the ingestion of such micro-nano-plastics in food and drinking water.

In recent years, Dr. Singh has also applied his interdisciplinary expertise in several COVID-19 related research projects, including assessment of particle filtration efficacy of novel fabric materials for face mask applications, evaluation and characterization of droplet/aerosol production by children undergoing spirometry testing and performing different classroom activities under masked/unmasked conditions, and investigation of the inactivation efficiency of potential UV and visible light intervention technologies against SARS-CoV-2 on surfaces and in air under normal room conditions.

Dr. Singh has demonstrated expertise in a variety of real-time monitoring instrumentation for aerosols and gaseous pollutants (SMPS, CPC, APS, P-Trak, DustTrak, Q-Trak, combustion analyzers, VOC monitors) and time-integrated size-fractionating particulate matter (PM) sampling methods (cascade impactors, bioaerosol samplers), which are commonly employed in onsite industrial hygiene evaluations. He is thoroughly trained in a wide range of state-of-the-art techniques for physicochemical and morphological characterization of nanomaterials including electron microscopy (SEM/EDX, TEM), spectroscopic methods (XRD, XPS, XRF, TGA-FTIR), surface area/porosity measurements (BET), and colloidal particle analysis (DLS, MALS). Dr. Singh is experienced in analyzing and interpreting quantitative chemical data from a variety of analytical instrumentation such as ICP-MS, OC/EC, NMR, LC-MS and GC-MS.

During his doctoral study, Dr. Singh received the New Investigator Award presented jointly by the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) for his work on investigating environmental health implications during the end-of-life of nano-enabled thermoplastics. Dr. Singh holds an Sc.D. in Environmental Health from Harvard University with specialization in bioengineering, exposure assessment and toxicology, an M.S. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Southern California (USC) with a major in water and wastewater treatment, and a B.Tech. in Civil Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), New Delhi.