Frontiers in Atmospheric Chemistry Seminar Series

About the Series

The Frontiers in Atmospheric Chemistry Seminar Series is a high profile virtual seminar series to be held over the 2020-21 academic year. Speakers will be a mix of junior and senior faculty members from US/Canada. Seminars will be presented “live” on Zoom webinars on Fridays at 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern. Presenters are encouraged to present unpublished results; as a result recordings or transcripts of talks will not be made available following the webinar. This series was organized across multiple institutions and anyone in the atmospheric chemistry community is welcome to attend the webinars. Please sign up to the email list if you are interested in receiving announcements. Note that webinar registration is unique for each speaker; emails with registration information are sent on Mondays. Though nothing can replace in-person interactions, in this unusual year we hope that this seminar series will provide a broad platform for individuals to share scientific results.

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Fall 2020 Schedule

Date Title Speaker Host
Sept 11 Impacts of Global Climate Change Mitigation on Health, Crops and Labor in the US Drew Shindell (Duke University) Chris Cappa (UC Davis)
Sept 18 Risky reductionism: what simple model systems can—and can’t—tell us about the air quality and climate impacts of desert dust and biomass burning aerosol Sarah Styler (McMaster University) Julie Fry (Reed College)
Sept 25 The coupling of lightning, air quality and climate Lee Murray (University of Rochester) Jesse Kroll (MIT)
Oct 2 Applications of deterministic models, geospatial methods, and machine learning to address multi-scale air quality challenges Cesunica Ivey (UC Riverside) Colette Heald (MIT)
Oct 9 Aerosol impacts on biogeochemical cycles: new insights for ocean and land systems Natalie Mahowald (Cornell University) Jen Murphy (University of Toronto)
Oct 16 Exploring Contemporary Changes in Biosphere-Atmosphere-Chemistry Interactions Jeff Geddes (Boston University) Allison Steiner (University of Michigan)
Oct 23 Understanding the impacts of molecular structure on the fate of atmospheric organics Gabriel Isaacman-VanWertz (Virginia Tech) Julie Fry (Reed College)
Oct 30 Microphysical and Chemical Processing of Saharan Dust Aerosols During Their Atmospheric Life Cycle Vernon Morris (Arizona State University) Allison Steiner (University of Michigan)
Nov 6 In search of ice nuclei over the Southern Ocean Sonia Kreidenweis (Colorado State University) Jen Murphy (University of Toronto)
Nov 13 Observing nitrogen dioxide air pollution inequality using high spatial resolution remote sensing measurements Sally Pusede (University of Virginia) Jesse Kroll (MIT)
Nov 20 Organic peroxy radical chemistry in the limit of NO -> zero Paul Wennberg (California Institute of Technology) Delphine Farmer (Colorado State University)
Dec 4 Effect of ammonia on the volatility and composition of secondary organic aerosols Ellie Browne (University of Colorado, Boulder) Delphine Farmer (Colorado State University)

Series Hosts

Chris Cappa

Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Chris Cappa

Delphine Farmer

Associate Professor of Chemistry
Delphine Farmer

Juliane Fry

Associate Professor of Chemistry and Environmental Studies
Juliane Fry

Colette Heald

Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering & Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences
Colette Heald

Jesse Kroll

Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering & Professor of Chemical Engineering
Jesse Kroll

Jennifer Murphy

Professor of Chemistry
Jennifer Murphy

Allison Steiner

Professor of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering
Allison Steiner

Associated Classes

Reed College: Chem 405, Atmospheric Chemistry Seminar, half-unit conference course; instructor: Julianne Fry

One-half course for one semester. In conjunction with a planned cross-institutional virtual speaker series, which will feature weekly seminars spanning the cutting-edge topics in atmospheric chemistry research, students in this course will meet weekly to discuss a paper from the primary literature related to the seminar. The course will deepen students’ understanding of the frontiers of atmospheric chemistry, while we learn to evaluate scholarship, pose questions, and participate in scientific discourse. Students will also have opportunities to meet and network with undergraduates and graduate students around the United States with interests in atmospheric chemistry. Prerequisite: Chemistry 101, 102, and 230, or consent of the instructor. Conference.

MIT: 1.S977, Frontiers in Atmospheric Chemistry, 3U; instructors: Colette Heald and Jesse Kroll

This special subject will be coupled to a multi-institutional virtual seminar series (Frontiers in Atmospheric Chemistry Seminar Series). This subject will expose graduate students to new research in the field, and provide opportunities to discuss the previous work of seminar presenters in a journal club format with student colleagues across multiple institutions. The intention of this class is to help compensate for lost research dissemination and networking opportunities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Columbia University: GR9910 Seminar in Atmospheric Science - Composition and Chemistry, 1 or 2 credits; Instructor: Roisin Commane
CSU: CHEM 651A, Special Topics in Chemistry, 1 credit; instructor: Delphine Farmer
UC Davis: ECI 289A Frontiers in Atmospheric Chemistry Seminar Series, 1 credit; Instructor: Chris Cappa
University of Michigan: CLIMATE 501-003 Frontiers in Atmospheric Chemistry Seminar Series, 1 credit; instructor: Allison Steiner
Virginia Tech: Civil and Environmental Engineering 6114: Advanced Air Quality Engineering, 1 credit; Instructor: Linsey Marr
William & Mary: Chem 460, Atmospheric Chemistry, 1 credit; Instructor: Rachel O’Brien

Seminar Papers

Date Speaker Paper
Sept 11 Drew Shindell Health and Economic Benefits of a 2ºC Climate Policy
Sept 18 Sarah Styler Production of Atmospheric Organosulfates via Mineral-Mediated Photochemistry
Sept 25 Lee Murray Lightning NOx and Impacts on Air Quality
Oct 2 Cesunica Ivey A data-driven approach for characterizing community scale air pollution exposure disparities in inland Southern California
Oct 9 Natalie Mahowald Aerosol Deposition Impacts on Land and Ocean Carbon Cycles
Oct 16 Jeff Geddes Importance of dry deposition parameterization choice in global simulations of surface ozone
Oct 23 Gabriel Isaacman-VanWertz Chemical evolution of atmospheric organic carbon over multiple generations of oxidation
Oct 30 Vernon Morris Bioavailable iron production in airborne mineral dust: Controls by chemical composition and solar flux
Nov 6 Sonia Kreidenweis Observations of Ice Nucleating Particles Over Southern Ocean Waters
Nov 13 Sally Pusede Observing Nitrogen Dioxide Air Pollution Inequality Using High-Spatial-Resolution Remote Sensing Measurements in Houston, Texas
Nov 20 Paul Wennberg Rapid hydrolysis of tertiary isoprene nitrate efficiently removes NOx from the atmosphere (embargoed; contact instructor for manuscript)
Dec 4 Ellie Browne Impact of Hydrogen Sulfide on Photochemical Haze Formation in Methane/Nitrogen Atmospheres