Dr. Yazdani received a B.S. and M.S. in Agricultural Engineering from California Polytechnic Sate University, San Luis Obispo in 1986 and University of California at Davis (UC Davis) in 1988, respectively. He received a Ph.D. in Civil & Environmental Engineering from UC Davis in 2010. He is currently an Associate Professional Researcher at the Air Quality Research Center and the Director of the Yolo County Division of Integrated Waste Management, where he has worked full time since 1990.

Dr. Yazdani is an internationally recognized leader in the solid waste management field. He works on the nexus between improved landfill management and emissions of pollutants. His professional life has been devoted to operating and conducting field-scale research in municipal solid waste management, specifically to aerobic and anaerobic decomposition of waste, organic waste diversion, leachate and biogas management. He has been recognized for his innovative, large-scale test cells at Yolo County, striking a good balance between fundamental and applied science.

He’s widely recognized for promoting the use of technology in several key areas to better manage solid waste and control emissions: landfill operation as an anaerobic and aerobic bioreactor for treatment of solid waste; the application of two-stage (anaerobic/aerobic) batch digester cell for treatment of source separated green waste/food waste mixture with the concomitant recovery of energy and compost; landfill gas collection systems designs for enhancing capture of landfill gas and reducing fugitive emissions; and design of porous media engineered to enhance emissions reduction, i.e., biocovers.