Arden Radford
Boston University
Rate Professor Arden Radford
Makes even the toughest topics accessible.
Helps students build confidence and skills.
Makes learning engaging and enjoyable.
Creates a collaborative learning environment.
I deeply appreciate how supportive you were throughout the course. You always made time to answer questions and provide guidance when I needed it most.
About Arden
Dr. Arden Radford earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Earth & Environment at Boston University in 2025. Her dissertation, titled “Modeling and Observations of Urban Greenhouse Gas and Air Pollutant Co-Emissions,” was successfully defended on July 29, 2025, under the advisement of Jeffrey Geddes. She previously obtained an M.A. in Remote Sensing & Geospatial Sciences from Boston University and a B.A. in Econometrics and Quantitative Economics and Astronomy from Wellesley College in 2015. At Wellesley, her research focused on remote sensing techniques for modeling and mapping impact craters on Mars. During her doctoral tenure at Boston University, Radford held the position of Global China Pre-doctoral Research Fellow at the Global Development Policy Center, investigating the environmental impacts of China’s Belt and Road Initiative on energy generation emissions and local air quality. She was affiliated with the BU URBAN program, served as a teaching fellow, and acted as Instructor of Record for a course at the Pardee School of Global Studies in Spring 2024.
Radford’s academic interests center on the impacts of urban air pollution, particularly fine particulate matter (PM2.5), on human and ecological health, utilizing remote sensing, dispersion modeling, and health impact assessments. Key publications include the working paper “Incremental PM2.5 Ambient Concentrations and Mortality Impacts from Coal Power Plants in Indonesia” (Global China Initiative Working Paper 035, 2024), co-authored with Jeffrey Geddes, Cecilia Springer, Budi Haryanto, and Adi Candra, which estimates that eight coal-fired power plants contribute to 1,061 excess premature deaths annually and $628 million in social costs. She also co-authored “Open-source methods for estimating health risks of fine particulate matter from coal-fired power plants: A demonstration from Karachi, Pakistan” (2021) and “Dependence of secondary crater characteristics on downrange distance: High-resolution morphometry and simulations” in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets (2017). Radford presented on urban air quality in the Boston University Initiative on Cities’ #BUandBoston series. Post-PhD, she serves as Sustainability Data Analyst at the NYC Department of Buildings.
Professional Email: aradford@bu.edu