Below is a list of past events related to AirUCI (sorted with the most recent first).
On September 6, AirUCI's AAAR Student chapter organized a visit to the California Air Resources Board at their Riverside branch. The group toured the grounds featuring environmental art installations, viewed the testing rooms, toured the labs, heard presentations of the history of CARB and the kinds of research they conduct, and learned about employment options with the agency.
On September 1st, AirUCI's AAAR student chapter will hold a writing workshop hosted by Professor Steve Mang that will be focused on professional development. The meeting will be held from from 1:30 - 3 pm in Rowland Hall room 390. Attendees are encouraged to bring their CV/resume to the workshop where you will have an opportunity to ask Prof. Mang questions about ways to improve it. Register using this form
On August 23rd, 2023, AirUCI presented a Legislators Day event where we invited every elected official representing Orange County from federal, state, county, and City of Irvine offices. Our intent was to provide policymakers with our latest scientific findings on climate change and air quality issues so they would have accurate, unbiased information as they write and evaluate legislation and guidelines pertaining to these topics. We also wanted to give them an up-close look at our labs so they could see taxpayer dollars in action. The response was tremendous with over 25 representatives from the U.S. Senate, U.S. Congress, California State Senate, California State Assembly, Orange County Supervisors, and the City of Irvine in attendance. View the agenda for Legislators Day
Joining us also were campus administrative officials including Vice Chancellor for Research Pramod Khargonekar, Dean of Physical Sciences James Bullock, Assistant Vice Chancellor of Community and Government Relations P. Alberto Sandoval, and Assistant Director of Federal Government Relations Louis Bronstein, among others.
We began with an overview of air quality and climate science, then toured six AirUCI laboratories where attendees saw demonstrations of our research and heard the latest in climate change and air quality data analysis. After hearing presentations and seeing our science first-hand, attendees were served lunch where they were joined by many AirUCI faculty and researchers. This was an excellent and welcome opportunity for the legislative staff to speak directly with our scientists and hear additional information about what had been discussed and demonstrated during the day, as well as other areas of AirUCI research.
A Q&A session ended the event, but most of our invited guests stayed afterward to continue conversations with our faculty and researchers. Each legislative attendee received an informational packet and a gift mug as thanks for their participation. Feedback from the legislative staff in attendance was very positive, expressing an eagerness to report back to their elected officials' offices locally and in Sacramento or Washington DC. There were also several requests to repeat Legislators Day in the near future so the elected officials themselves could attend and receive this information in person.
The attendees were quite knowledgeable but with a limited science background, and many expressed great appreciation for the format of the event, having this vital information presented in "scientific lite" language. They came away armed with the research findings they need to provide background and context as they represent their constituents in these matters.
We wish to thank all the legislators and their staff members who took time to attend our event. Our hope is that AirUCI will be considered a ready resource for policymakers working to write laws and guidelines for environmental issues.
AirUCI faculty Filipp Furche is hosting a special seminar on July 13th. Professor Yosuke Kanai, from the Department of Chemistry and in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will give a seminar to be held at 1:00 PM in Natural Sciences 2 room 2201 entitled “All-electron BSE@GW method with atom-centered orbital basis” which has application to core electron excitation and extension to condensed matter systems.
On July 11th AirUCI hosted a visit from Anthony Falcone, Field Representative for Congresswoman Katie Porter. She had sent a letter to AirUCI Co-Director Barbara Finlayson-Pitts congratulating Barbara for a recent grant that was awarded to study neonicotinoid pesticides, and Anthony expressed interest in hearing about her research. Barbara met with him to discuss her research projects in general, then accompanied him as he toured our labs. We thank Anthony for his interest and for reporting back to Rep. Porter about the importance of what we're doing at AirUCI.
AirUCI faculty Jim Randerson will give a talk for UCI's Department of Earth System Science on Wednesday, June 7th at 3:30 pm in Croul Hall room 3101. The talk is entitled "The weak terrestrial carbon sink hypothesis" and is open to all.
UCI's Chemistry Department will hold its 6th Annual Research Saturday on June 3rd and AirUCI will be opening several of our labs for visitation. This event allows chemistry majors and honors organic lab series students to visit prospective research labs, and is an opportunity for faculty to meet potential undergraduate researchers. AirUCI has participated in the past and we have indeed met a number of undergrads who joined our research teams. This event has proven very beneficial for students to see the types of research undertaken in the Chemistry Department, especially when students are actively exploring career choices.
On Monday, May 8th, Professor Coty Jen of Carnegie Mellon will be visiting AirUCI and will lead a discussion with AirUCI's AAAR group. They will meet in Rowland Hall room 390 from 10 - 11:30. All are welcome to attend.
On May 2nd, AirUCI will sponsor a P-Chem lecture given by Alex Laskin of Purdue University (hosted by Sergey Nizkorodov). This event will be held from 3:30 - 4:30 in Rowland Hall room 104. His talk is entitled, "Unrecognized Urban Source of Atmospheric Nanoplastic Particles.
On April 19th, AirUCI will host tours of our labs for students of Godinez Fundamental High School in Santa Ana. About 50 science students and their teachers will visit the nuclear reactor along with the labs of AirUCI faculty Blake, Shiraiwa, Nizkorodov, and Finlayson-Pitts.
