2009
September 2009: Undergraduate students Kathy Kim, Lucas Nguyen, John Morrison and Zoe Cabral join the group. Joshua Klobas returns to the group after spending his summer on quantum dot research in Germany. Mark Peterson starts graduate school at Northwestern University after finishing his summer research in the group.
September 2009: Profs. Sergey Nizkorodov (PI), Donald Blake, and Barbara Finlayson-Pitts receive an instrumentation grant from the National Science Foundation to purchase two modern mass spectrometers to support multiple AirUCI collaborative research projects (MRI-0923323, Acquisition of Two High-Resolution Mass Spectrometers for Collaborative Research on Energy Use, Air Quality and Health). The first mass spectrometer is Ionicon's high-resolution PTR-MS instrument for detection of gas-phase volatile organic compounds. The second instrument is a high-resolution aerosol particle spectrometer from Aerodyne Research.
August 2009: AirUCI successfully competes for a 5-year renewal grant (A Comprehensive Approach to Understanding Chemistry at Interfaces and Atmospheric Implications) from the National Science Foundation. Just as with the previous AirUCI grant, Prof. Finlayson-Pitts leads the effort.
July 2009: 20 high and middle school
teachers take part in the fifth annual teacher workshop organized by the AirUCI. More details...
June 2009: Univeristy High School's student Clement Kao signs up for a summer internship with the group.
May 2009: Chris Harmon receives the 2009 Rowland Award for his graduate research achievements. His award is announced at the 2009 departmental Lee event. Joshua Klobas receives the 2009 ACS Analytical Chemistry Award. Tran Nguyen receives the 2009 Chemistry Department's First Year Teaching Assistant Award. Congratulations to everyone for well deserved honors!
March 2009: Xiang Pan defends his PhD thesis on March 9, 2009. He accepts a job offer from one of the largest Chinese analytical instrument companies, Jiangsu Skyray Instrument Co
January 2009: AirUCI team conducts its annual
meeting in Laguna Beach, CA. More
details...
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2008
November 2008: The group receives a 3-year grant from NSF to study photodegradation of organic aerosols by solar radiation (ATM-0831518, Photochemistry of Secondary Organic Aerosol Particles)
October 2008: Maggie Walser, who previously received her PhD in this group in 2007, receives the AGU's 2008–2009 Congressional Science Fellowship. More information.
September 2008: A record number of undergraduate researchers join the group: Dana Henricksen, Joshua Klobas, Madelyn McKittrick, Anne Nguyen, Mark Peterson, Susann Rodas, and Carmen Seetho. Welcome!
July 2008: 20 high and middle school
teachers take part in the fourth annual teacher workshop organized by the AirUCI.
More details...
June 2008: Dr. David Bones, who recently
graduated from the research group of Prof. Leon Phillips at
the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, starts his postdoctoral
research in the Aerosol Photochemistry Group. Dr. Bones did
research on photochemistry of metal carbonyl compounds in aerosol
phase prior to his arrival at UCI. He will be doing research
on photochemistry of organic carbonyls in secondary organic
aerosol at UCI.
May 2008: Stephen Mang defends his PhD degree
on May 19, 2008. He is getting ready to starting his new job
as a lecturer of chemistry at the Department
of Chemistry and Biochemistry at University of Maryland,
Baltimore County. Congratulations Steve!
April 2008: The department votes in favor
of Prof. Nizkorodov's tenure propotion. The tenure promotion is approved by the UC administration in July 2008.
March 2008: Adam Bateman is awarded 2008-09 Graduate Research Environmental Fellowship (GREF) by the Department of Energy's Office of Biological and Environmental Research. (DOE OBER).
January 2008:
- Ahmad Alshawa defends his PhD
degree. His defense features the largest cake ever seen
by a graduate committee.
- AirUCI team conducts its annual
meeting in Newport Beach, CA. More
details...
- Dana Henricksen joins the group
as an undergraduate researcher.
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2007
November 2007: The Aerosol Photochemistry
Group welcomes Tran Nguyen, who graduated from USC in 2007 as its new group member.
September 2007: Stacy Wilkinson and Sero
Kassabian join the group as an undergraduate researchers for
2007-08.
August 2007: Maggie Walser defends her PhD
degree and starts an internship at the National
Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE) in Washington,
DC.
July 2007:
- The AirUCI team offers an outreach
program in environmental chemistry to 20 high and middle school
teachers. Just like last year, the program is coordinated by
Sergey Nizkorodov (UCI) and Mickey Laux (OCC). More
details...
- Joelle Underwood starts her independent
academic career in the Department
of Chemistry at Loyola University in New Orleans.
June 2007:
- Jennifer Lopez starts her MSc
project in the Aerosol Photochemistry lab. Jennifer received
her undergraduate degree from UCI, and she works as the UCI
chemistry stockroom supervisor in parallel with studying for
her MSc degree.
- Chris Harmon joins the Aerosol
Photochemistry lab. Chris received his undergraduate degree
from Purdue University. At UCI, he initially worked on chemistry
of secondary organic aerosol particles in Prof. Finlayson-Pitts
group (2005-07), and then switched to studying hygroscopicity
of nanoparticles in Aerosol Photochemistry Group.
May 2007:
- Maggie Walser receives the most
prestigious graduate student award from the UCI Chemistry Department: Edward K.C. Lee award. Stephen Mang is honored for
his Outstanding Contributions to the Chemistry Department Teaching
Program as a TA.
- Anthony Gomez becomes the first
graduate student to graduate from the Aerosol Photochemistry
group. He accepts a postdoctoral position in the Combustion
Research Facility in Sandia National Laboratory.
- Sergey Nizkorodov is awarded a prestigious Camille
Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award.
April 2007: Jia-Hua Xiang joins the group
and AirUCI institute as a postdoctoral researcher. Her main
area of expertise is secondary organic aerosol chemistry.
March 2007: AirUCI institute hosts its annual
Community Day on March 29, 2007. More
details...
February 2007: A paper by Ahmad Alshawa,
Ashley Russell and Sergey Nizkorodov: "Kinetic analysis
of competition between aerosol particle removal and generation
by ionization air-purifiers" appeared in Environmental
Science and Technology. View Channel 7 ABC News coverage of
this paper (quicktime
video clip). Here is a link to the UCI press release on
this paper: "In
presence of fragrant cleaning products, air purifiers that emit
ozone can dirty the air" by Jennifer Fitzenberger
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2006
December 2006: AirUCI team conducts its annual
meeting in New Zealand. More
details...
October 2006: Lab OPEN HOUSE on Friday, October
20, 4-5 pm, in RH390. Free pizza!
September 2006: Enosh Cohen, Mark Dailo,
Thong Do, and Tanza Lewis join the group as undergraduate student
researchers for 2006-07.
July 2006: AirUCI team offers an outreach
program in environmental chemistry to 20 high and middle school
teachers. Just like last year, the program is coordinated by
Sergey Nizkorodov (UCI) and Mickey Laux (OCC). More
details...
June 2006: Aerosol Photochemistry group completes its transition
to a larger lab (RH385).
May 2006: A paper by Nicole Britigan, Ahmad
Alshawa, and Sergey Nizkorodov: "Quantification
of ozone levels in indoor environments generated by ionization
and ozonolysis air-purifiers" appeared in JAWMA 56
(2006) p. 601-610, and generated a lot of interest from the
media.
View KCLA9 coverage of this paper (quicktime video clips): Clip 1 Clip 2
Here are selected reviews of this paper:
March 2006: AirUCI institute hosts its annual
Community Day on March 30, 2006. More
details...
January 2006:
- Aerosol Photochemistry group
starts moving into a larger laboratory.
- AirUCI team conducts its annual
meeting in Irvine. More
details...
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2005
November 2005: Sergey Nizkorodov offers a
workshop “Educating High School Students about Energy Use, Air
Pollution, and Climate Problems” at the Orange
County Science Education Association (OCSEA) Fall conference.
July 2005:
- Sergey Nizkorodov receives a single-PI grant from the National Science Foundation (ATM-0509248, Photochemistry at Organic Particle-Air Interfaces), to study photochemical processes in organic aerosols.
- AirUCI team offers a program in
environmental chemistry to 20 high and middle school teachers for the first time.
The program is coordinated by Sergey Nizkorodov (UCI) and Mickey
Laux (OCC). More
details...
- AirUCI team conducts its annual
meeting in Prague. More
details...
- Sergey Nizkorodov receives Coblenz
award for his contributions to the development of vibrational
spectroscopy.
June 2005:
- Ashley Russell, Steve Ng, and
Robert Bennigsdorf join the group as undergraduate student researchers
- Joelle Underwood, who received
her PhD degree from the University of Southern California in
Curt Wittig's group, joins the group and AirUCI institute as
a postdoctoral researcher. Her main area of expertise is spectroscopy.
March 2005: AirUCI institute hosts its annual
Community Day on March 31, 2005. More
Info...
February 2005: 2005 Informal Symposium on
Kinetics and Photochemical Processes in the Atmosphere takes
place at the University of California at Irvine (UCI) on February
14, 2005. Sergey Nizkorodov and Donald Dabdub are the organizers. More details...
January 2005: Dr. Jiho Park joins UCI as
a Dreyfus Postdoctoral Scholar in Environmental Chemistry, following the award of this scholarship to UCI by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation. Dr.
Park received his PhD degree from Texas A&M University and
his main area of expertise is kinetics.
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2004
October 2004: Nicole Britigan and Melanie Nguyen join the group as undergraduate student researchers
September 2004:
- Several UCI scientists join
their forces with researchers in US National Laboratories and
abroad to establish NSF sponsored Environmental Molecular Sciences
Institute (EMSI). The institute is named AirUCI (Atmospheric
Integrated Research Using Chemistry at Interfaces) to reflect
the main focus of research on interfacial processes in the atmosphere.
- Maggie Walser, a recent graduate
of UCI, joins the Aerosol Photochemistry Group as a graduate
student. Maggie Walser is a holder of the prestigious NSF graduate
fellowship. Her main area of specialization is atmospheric chemistry.
- Anthony Gomez is awarded
Faculty Mentor Program Fellowship for 2004-2005 to study photochemistry
of atmospheric organic aerosol particles.
- Xiang Pan is awarded UC TSR&TP
graduate fellowship for 2004-2005 to study formation of toxins
on ultrafine soot particles.
- Stephen Mang is awarded GAANN fellowship for 2004-2005.
Summer 2004: Sergey Nizkorodov receives $50k
from the Cancer Research Coordinating Committee to study the
effect of aerosol particle size on the rate of oxidation of
carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
Spring 2004: Sergey Nizkorodov receives $35k
Research Innovation Award from the Research Corporation to develop
a novel approach for studying the mechanism of ozonolysis of
unsaturated fatty acids at gas-solid and gas-liquid interfaces.
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2003
September 2003:
- Stephen Mang, a graduate
of the University of San Diego, joins the group a part of the
UCI ChaMP graduate program.
- Graduate student Xiang Pan,
who obtained his undergraduate degree at the University of Science
and Technology in China, joins the Aerosol Photochemistry Group
to pursue a degree in physical chemistry.
Summer 2003:
- The first generation of Chemical
Ionization Aerosol Mass Spectrometer is completed.
- The first generation of the IR CRDS apparatus is completed.
February 2003: Dr. Ao Lin joins the Aerosol
Photochemistry Group as a postdoctoral researcher and starts
working on Chemical Ionization Aerosol Mass Spectrometer. Prior
to his arrival at UCI, Dr. Ao Lin obtained his undergraduate
degree at the University of Science and Technology in China,
obtained his PhD from Ohio State University and spent one year
as a postdoctoral researcher in Brookhaven National Laboratory.
His main area of expertise is laser spectroscopy.
January 2003: The laboratory space renovation
is complete. The first instruments are installed in the lab
in early January.
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2002
September 2002: Graduate students Anthony
Gomez and Ahmad Alshawa join the Aerosol Photochemistry Group.
Anthony Gomez is a graduate of UCI, and he is specializing in
physical chemistry. Ahmad Alshawa is a graduate of Montclair
State University, NJ, and his future area of expertise is analytical
chemistry.
July 2002: Sergey Nizkorodov joins the UCI
Chemistry Department to establish a new research program in
aerosol photochemistry. He gets an empty lab on the fifth floor of the Rowland Hall building.
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