Traffic exhaust and wildfires outdoors…

Cooking smoke and infectious diseases indoors…

How can you keep air in your home the safest?

SAPPHIRES is a holistic engineering collaboration to transform homes for public health, funded by the National Science Foundation.

Our Premise

Exposure to particulate matter is a major cause of premature death and disability.

People get exposed in their houses, because they spend 90% of their time indoors and 75% of that at home.

Yet for some reason, the ways in which air carries contaminants into and out of homes aren’t well understood or managed.

 We aim to do better.

SAPPHIRES is an acronym for Systemic, Anthro-centric Packages for Protecting Households In Realistic Exposure Situations.

Our Themes

People are busy and distracted, yet want to choose how devices act in their homes. We’ll explore how people rely on and trust technology. Your experience is important!

By the time you smell dirty air, you’re already breathing it. We’re working to keep bad air from getting into your home in the first place, with strategies adapted from commercial buildings.

By checking outdoor air pollution and anticipating when it might come inside, we can get a jump on preparing your home for outdoor pollution events.

New devices alone can’t keep you safe at home. We’ll design solutions for systems where people, devices, homes, and environment are connected, imperfect, and constantly changing.

Air flows in and out of your home because of tiny pressure differences. By measuring those pressures in special locations, we’ll learn to manage your home air quality.

We’ll train contractors who improve homes to make clean indoor air possible for everyone, leveraging the national network that serves low-income homes.