News

Here's the latest news from AirUCI — our events, our people, our science.

 

2015

Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Dabdub appointed Assistant Dean

AirUCI PI Michael Dennin, who is also Vice Provost of Teaching and Learning and is Dean in the Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE), announced today the appointment of AirUCI PI Donald Dabdub as DUE's second Associate Dean effective November 1, 2015.

Donald is actually returning to DUE after many years, as he was a Faculty Advisor for Undecided/Undeclared students early in his career at UCI.  In Engineering, he is very engaged with undergraduate students, and teaches one of the main gateway courses.  He brings both his experience as a first generation student and an international student to DUE, and is dedicated to helping these populations of students thrive.  Congratulations, Donald!
 

Friday, October 16, 2015
Former AirUCI graduate student wins prestigious award

Tran B. Nguyen, former AirUCI graduate student, has received The Sheldon K. Friedlander Award from the American Association for Aerosol Research (AAAR). This award, which is presented at the 2015 AAAR annual meeting, recognizes an "outstanding dissertation by an individual who has earned a doctoral degree". Tran defended her PhD dissertation "Molecular Composition and Chemical Transformation of Secondary Organic Aerosols from Biogenic Precursors" at UCI in 2012. She is currently working as postdoctoral researcher at Caltech and will soon start her independent faculty career at the University of California, Davis.  Congratulations, Tran, and good luck!

Friday, October 16, 2015
AirUCI grad student wins poster award

Danielle Draper, graduate student in AirUCI's Smith Research Group, was awarded a best poster award today at the AAAR meeting for her poster on organics aerosol formation in the presence of NOx. Congratulations Danielle! 

Friday, October 9, 2015
AirUCI PI competes in solar home project

AirUCI PI Jack Brouwer has served as faculty adviser for the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems in Team Orange’s entry in the seventh bi-annual national Solar Decathlon, hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy.  Partner schools UCI, Irvine Valley College, Chapman University, and Saddleback College form Orange County's entry, and the schools have been working for two years to design and build an innovative solar home, on view through October 18, 2015.
In a quote from the Orange County Register, Jack said, “I certainly hope this house has outreach potential for inspiring our students to pursue this technology in the future and those in the general public to realize that, first of all, it can be beautiful. Secondly, it can be energy efficient, and third, it can be sustainable for them to use for centuries to come. There’s no other energy conversion for how we should live that can claim that.”   Read the article

Friday, October 9, 2015
Lennox Academy students return for lab tours

On October 9, 2015, AirUCI will again host high school students from the Lennox Academy who will tour our labs and learn about our research projects.  Their 2014 tour was such a success that a new crop of students wanted to visit us!  View the schedule

Thursday, October 1, 2015
Lisa Wingen serving as science coach

Dr. Lisa Wingen, AirUCI Project Scientist, is participating for the second year in an outreach effort as a "science coach" for a 5th grade teacher at Castille Elementary School in Mission Viejo, a program sponsored by the American Chemical Society.  She will once again act as a resource and assistant in implementing science enrichment activities for the class.

Monday, September 21, 2015
Sergey Nizkorodov named AirUCI Co-Director

AirUCI PI Sergey Nizkorodov has been named Co-Director of the AirUCI Institute.  Along with Director Barbara Finlayson-Pitts, Sergey will oversee the many tasks required to keep our institute running smoothly.  He has already provided leadership in many of our activities and events, and we look forward to his able guidance in many more areas.

Monday, September 21, 2015
Prof. Rufus Edwards joins AirUCI

Dr. Rufus Edwards, Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health at UCI's School of Medicine, is now an AirUCI PI.  His research focuses on the effects of air pollution on human health, including assessment of human exposures to household air pollution from solid fuel use and subsequent health effects; emissions from household combustion sources including greenhouse gases and particulate matter including black carbon; emissions from rural small scale industries.  He is well know for development of innovative sampling and analysis techniques.  Welcome, Rufus!

Friday, August 7, 2015
Jim Pitts honored at Gordon Conference

The Gordon Research Conference on Atmospheric Chemistry: Multiphase Processes: Observations and Fundamentals was held August 3-7, 2015 in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire.  The final session of the conference was dedicated to the memory of AirUCI's Jim Pitts, a titan in the field of atmospheric chemistry, who passed away in June, 2014.  Barbara Finlayson-Pitts, our director as well as research partner and wife of Jim, was attending the conference as a keynote speaker and was present for this rememberance of our dear colleague and friend.

Friday, August 7, 2015
AirUCI a strong presence at Gordon Conference

AirUCI Director Barbara Finlayson-Pitts was the keynote speaker at the Gordon Research Conference on Atmospheric Chemistry: Multiphase Processes: Observations and Fundamentals which was held August 3-7, 2015 in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire.  Her talk was entitled, "Particles, Pesticides and Politics".  In addition, AirUCI PI Sergey Nizkorodov was an invited speaker at the conference, with a talk entitled, "The State of Knowledge of Condensed-Phase Photochemistry in Atmospheric Organic Aerosols".  Former AirUCI collaborator Markus Ammann was also an invited speaker and former AirUCI postdoc Jennie Thomas was a discussion leader for the Halogens in the Troposphere session.

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