AirUCI faculty Paulina Oliva has left UCI's Department of Economics and AirUCI to take a faculty position at the University of Southern California. We wish her the greatest success and hope to continue collaborative research with her.
News
Here's the latest news from AirUCI — our events, our people, our science.
2017
Friday, December 1, 2017
Lower income housing is often energy inefficient. Poor neighborhoods lack trees, plants, and greenbelts, a factor that can affect cooling. AirUCI Faculty Jack Brouwer is leading a team that will retrofit the Oak View neighborhood in Huntington Beach, and the UCI team wants to include better insulation and weather proofing, new windows, working appliances, even solar panels. The government-funded competition is part of the push to meet state law calling for California’s greenhouse gas emissions to return to 1990 levels by 2020. Read the article
Thursday, November 30, 2017
AirUCI faculty Scott Samuelsen, director of the National Fuel Cell Research Center at UCI, is quoted in an article in the New York Times describing how hydrogen fuel cells are being used to power massive data centers. These data centers could become an important market for fuel cells because the industry “appears to want to be more environmentally sensitive but more reliant on their own resources.” Compared to fossil fuel-burning centers, fuel cells are more efficient and quieter, which has proven a surprising barrier to their acceptance among potential customers, Professor Samuelsen says. “It’s hard for anyone to believe that they’re making any power,” he said. “It’s not like a jet engine.”
Read the article
Tuesday, November 28, 2017
AirUCI co-Director Barbara Finlayson-Pitts and UCI Chemistry Professor Nien-Hui Ge were included a virtual issue of the Journal of Physical Chemistry in honor of the 150th birthday of Marie Curie. The issue highlights the science and publications by 66 women scientists and researchers who have published in J. Phys. Chem.
Details
Monday, November 27, 2017
AirUCI faculty Jack Brouwer was quoted in Transportation Topics journal in an article on fuel cells and how they're being used to extend distance and payload of freight trucks. “With fuel cells, it’s possible to make a totally zero-emissions truck that can haul a big payload over a reasonable distance without adding so much weight," Brouwer said. This type of separate power and energy sizing of the truck’s fuel cell “is not possible with batteries alone.” Read the article
Monday, November 27, 2017
AirUCi faculty John Hemminger has been appointed external scientific member of the Fritz Haber Institute in Berlin. FHI has a long history of excellence in physical chemistry research and is recognized as the highest ranked surface science research institute in the world. The Scientific Member designation is that of the Directors of the MPG Institutes. Congratulations, John!
Monday, November 6, 2017
AirUCI founder and Co-Director Barbara Finlayson Pitts has received the 2017 Distinguished Faculty Award for Research from the UCI Academic Senate. The awards ceremony and reception were held November 6, 2017 at the Newkirk Alumni Center on campus. Congratulations, Barb!
Friday, November 3, 2017
AirUCI Co-Director Sergey Nizkorodov, along with AirUCI collaborators Julia and Alex Laskin, have published a well-received review of mass spectrometry and its use in atmospheric chemistry in the journal Analytical Chemistry. The review presents new developments in MS instrumentation and methods, summarizes selected applications of MS-based techniques, and discusses several promising directions in the field.
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Monday, October 30, 2017
AirUCI founder and Co-Director Barbara Finlayson-Pitts has received the Distinguished Faculty Award for Research by the UCI Academic Senate, which is the senior award for research that the campus conveys. Congratulations, Barb!
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
AirUCI faculty Steven Davis was asked to comment on an article in Science describing the challenges of balancing poverty eradication with climate change mitigation, although he was not involved with the work. The study implies that climate and human development goals are not necessarily inconsistent, but “It really kind of depends on what level of poverty we’re OK with,” he said. The bottom line, he adds is that, “If we’re really trying to consider getting people not just out of extreme poverty, but into the middle class, then maybe we do have more of a challenge.” Read the article
