Organic Aerosol Research Studies (OARS) Laboratory

CONGRATULATIONS to Austin who successfully defended his PhD dissertation last week! Wonderful job and accolades all around from the audience and your committee.

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Congratulations to Chris Snyder who successfully defended his PhD dissertation yesterday. Glowing comments from all in attendance! On to bigger and better things!!!

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Congratulations again to Austin and Chris with the publication of our most recent manuscript published in the inaugural volume of the new MDPI journal Air. This work studying the impact of relative humidity of new particle formation from ozonolysis of atmospheric volatile organic compounds is truly exciting and full of surprises!

Flueckiger, A.C.; Snyder, C.N.; Petrucci, G.A. “Nontrivial Impact of Relative Humidity on Organic New Particle Formation from Ozonolysis of cis-3-Hexenyl Acetate.” Air 2023, 1, 222–236.
https://doi.org/10.3390/air1040017

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Austin is having a stellar month! His manuscript on improving the reproducibility of laboratory chamber measurements of new particle formation and secondary organic aerosol generation was accepted for publication in Aerosol Science and Technology and his abstract to the AAAR conference this fall was accepted for a platform presentation. Great job!!!

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Congratulations to Bridget Seymour who was recently awarded a fellowship to conduct research with our group this summer. Woohoo…

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Welcome to Tijesuni Adeoye and Adam Budzyn, who joined our research recently. Really looking forward to working with you and exciting times in the lab!

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Our most recent work was published in the journal Atmosphere (https://doi.org/10.3390/atmos14010173)

This article presents our recent discovery that water in the atmosphere may greatly enhance the formation of new organic particles, which can then impact global change through the absorption and scattering of solar radiation and by modifying cloud properties. Until very recently, it was generally accepted that high humidity decreased the amount of atmospheric organic particles formed, but our work clearly shows that this is not the case when considering reactions of compounds at atmospherically relevant levels. Stay tuned…

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CONGRATS! to our own Francesca Milazzo on receiving a Vermont Space Grant Consortium Graduate Fellowship for 2022-2023 for her continuing work on studying the chemical and physical role of water vapor in the formation of new organic particles in the atmosphere.

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Research in the OARS laboratory is focused on understanding the production, chemistry and phase of atmospheric organic particles. Specifically, our projects focus on:

• Discovering new sources of secondary organic aerosols (SOA) in our atmosphere

• Understanding the formation and evolution of SOA on a molecular level

• Measuring and studying the dynamic phase state of SOA

• Understanding the chemical role of water vapor in SOA formation and aging

• Bringing science to K-12 students through targeted podcasts

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