Dr. Linda D. Lee is the Principal of Linda D. Lee Healthcare Consultants LLC and is a qualified public health professional with a strong background in industrial hygiene, facilities management, infection prevention, and environmental health and safety. Her focused area of practice is the relationship between opportunistic environmental pathogens and occupied spaces.
Dr. Lee earned a bachelor's degree in Environmental Health Science from Indiana State University, a master's degree in Operations Management from the University of Arkansas College of Engineering, and a Doctorate in Public Health with a focus on Occupational and Environmental Health from the University of Texas Health Science Center. She also holds an MBA with an emphasis in Healthcare Management and is a Certified Infection Preventionist (CIC) and previously a Certified Indoor Air Quality Manager.
Dr. Lee has spent more than 30 years in healthcare, previously working for CH2M Hill, Waste Management Healthcare Solutions, Inc., The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, and a founding member of Stericycle, Inc. She currently provides services to clients in the healthcare and industry sectors. Dr. Lee is a speaker and author of numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and publications, as well as three books published by the American Hospital Association. She is a frequently invited speaker at ASHE, ASHP, ASHRAE, APIC, SHEA, AIHA Connect, IPAC-Canada, Texas Pharmacy Society, and numerous local and State ASHE and APIC chapters. She is also a member of several ASHRAE committees, including 241 Infectious Aerosols (previous co-chair of air cleaner section and the healthcare section), Environmental Health Committee (educational subcommittee chair), 185 UV, and chair of 185.3 standard committee (test method for in-room air cleaners), 170, 2.9, and 9.6.
Research
6.1 Research, Research, and more Research
If it is microbial research in the environment built that you are more interested in, this presentation covers extensive peer-reviewed and other applications research on UV-supplemented air technologies across many different environments. These actual field studies include military bases, healthcare facilities, burn units, cancer units, compounding pharmacies, nursing homes, operating rooms, endoscopy suites (aerosol-generating areas), intensive care units, senior living and so forth. These cover both proxy bacteria and mold. Topics include sampling protocols, industrial hygiene applications, biostatistics, and data interpretation. All provided in an easy-to-understand format.
Cross-Discipline Collaboration
5.1 Breaking the Chain of Transmission: What Every Facilities Engineer Should Know
Translates the classic chain-of-transmission model into engineering terms, linking a mechanical system that controls and sits outside its scope entirely. Each person who manages a facility gains an understanding of their own system's controls and the links of the transmission chain they actually influence. The session also discusses the role of the ventilation management plan and how facilities management can go beyond basic code compliance to meet the organization's needs.
5.2 One Team, Not Three Silos
The organizational argument: engineering, industrial hygiene, infection prevention, and facilities management each own a piece of the picture, and the case for a standing relationship instead of sequential handoffs. The relationships among support staff, engineering, facilities management, infection prevention, and industrial hygiene are critical and often intersect. These intersections are for the betterment of all building occupants. Having a common language and understanding of these intersections is very important for the health of the building and the roles each plays.
Aerobiology & Building Science
1.1 Aerobiology 101, The Air Matters
This presentation examines aerobiology fundamentals essential for ASHRAE practitioners implementing infection control strategies. Beginning with particle physics and transmission pathways, attendees will understand how bioaerosols behave in real-world built environments versus design assumptions. The session explores the gap between the bases of design and operational reality, including pressure differentials disrupted by door openings, recirculation zones that affect pathogen distribution, and the snow-globe effect of human activity. Key ASHRAE standards (62.1, 170, 241) and ASHRAE/ASHE Guideline 43 are contextualized within their specific intents and limitations, clarifying why ventilation alone cannot eliminate the risk of infection. Field research in healthcare settings demonstrates measurable reductions in pathogen levels using layered engineering controls.
1.2 They're Living Among Us! The Building Microbiome
Not airborne particles in transit, but the standing microbial ecosystem that develops in a building over months and years of operation. What types of microbiology practices are used in specific areas? What actions encourage health-neutral spaces? What outdoor biological sites should be excluded from these spaces? The importance of understanding protective environments and the people in them. How can the design and operations control the exposure of microbiomes for at-risk and vulnerable populations.
Designing for the Occupant
4.1 Beyond IAQ!
Challenges the comfort-and-filtration-only view of indoor air quality, making the case for bioaerosol load and occupant risk as explicit design targets — not an afterthought bolted onto energy and comfort goals. A space can post a clean IAQ scorecard — CO2 setpoints in range, filtration rated to spec, temperature and humidity comfort surveys satisfied — while the actual bioaerosol load at breathing-zone height tells a very different story than the sensor in the room or somewhere down the HVAC system. This session looks at where standard IAQ metrics and actual occupant exposure diverge, and what it would mean to design and operate toward the occupant's actual exposure instead of just the scorecard.
4.2 Who Are You Really Designing For? Occupant Risk Profiles
High-risk, high-density, and high-contamination populations each change what "good air" means for a given room, and each demands a different engineering answer. A high-risk population — a NICU, an oncology unit, a transplant floor — needs protection built around a compromised immune system, not a healthy adult. A high-density population — a packed classroom, waiting room, a transit hub — needs a system sized for bioaerosol accumulation from occupant load itself, not just comfort. A high-contamination environment — procedure rooms, a necropsy lab, a biosafety lab, a waste handling area — needs source containment and/or supplemental air treatment to protect everyone outside the room, not just conditioning for whoever's inside it. This session walks through classifying a space correctly before defaulting to a one-size-fits-all ventilation approach.
4.3 Designing for Health-Compromised Populations
A focused look at high-risk clinical and institutional settings — burn units, oncology, transplant — and what their ventilation and pressurization needs demand beyond general code minimums. This includes the required pressurization cascades between anterooms and patient rooms, the difference between central-handler-level filtration and terminal HEPA filtration at the diffuser, humidity and air-change targets specific to protective environments, and the use of supplemental air treatment as a backstop to operational shortcomings. A patient in an OR may be at greater risk of surgical site infections, not because of design, but because of the challenges of day-to-day OR crisis management. This session gives facilities teams and engineers the vocabulary to ask the right questions when a clinical partner requests help understanding why infection rates keep rising or aren't coming down, and what's actually being asked of the mechanical system.
Design vs. Operation — The Limits of Commissioning
2.1 Beyond Commissioning: Where Design Assumptions Meet Operational Reality
Commissioning verifies that a system was built as designed. It does not verify that the space continues to serve its occupants once the owner takes responsibility. This is the core gap: design intent has limits, and operation is where those limits show up. Specific examples from peer research may provide designers with insights to ask questions and ultimately meet the client's needs.
2.2 How Do We Know It's Working? Validating Air Quality After Turnover
The practical application — what to actually measure after turnover, where, and how often, to know whether space is still doing its job a year in. Validation can be key to understanding the health risks to compromised populations. Guidelines for basic sampling techniques to know what is in the air. Better yet, what does it mean?
The Standards Landscape
3.1 62.1, 170, 62.2, and 241 — Four Standards, Four Jobs
As related to the microbial world we live in, a straightforward explanation of what each ASHRAE standard governs: 62.1/170/62.2 on a day-to-day basis of design, and 241 as the event-triggered Infection Risk Management Mode for a declared disease transmission. The differences in disease transmission and the role of facilities and engineering in design and operation to break this chain. The difference between day-to-day operations and events during a declared outbreak.
3.2 We Had a Pandemic, So Where Are the Regulations?
A look at the regulatory landscape itself — what exists, and where the gaps are between pandemic-era lessons and current standards. Model codes and standards and mandatory ventilation requirements typically take years to move from a technical committee to state and local adoption, and jurisdictions vary widely in whether and when they adopt updates. A voluntary consensus standard sits outside that slow adoption cycle — it's something an owner, facility manager, or health system can choose to implement immediately, without waiting for a jurisdiction to mandate it. This session walks through why voluntary adoption, not waiting on code, currently offers the greatest flexibility for closing the gap pandemic-era lessons exposed, and what that adoption decision actually looks like for a facility team.
3.3 The Nuts and Bolts of the Application of ASHRAE 241
The technical, hands-on piece of 241 — how air cleaning (capture/removal or inactivation of infectious aerosols) can be credited toward a clean air rate as an alternative to ventilation alone. This presentation is not necessarily for the mechanical engineer, but more for the facilities manager, technician, or attendee who wants to understand the sections and application of 241 within the facilities they manage. This is a step-by-step guide to the 241 standard and the flexibility it offers. This presentation is from the public health, infection prevention, and industrial hygiene lens.