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Research and/or Creative Works

Our research focuses on developing new methods for the physical and chemical analysis of organic aerosols and then applying these methods to questions of relevance to the atmosphere. Our approach is centered on three pillars: (1) identify volatile compound (VOC) emissions from biogenic sources that are precursors to organic aerosols; (2) understand the fundamental chemical mechanisms by which these aerosols are formed and aged in the atmosphere; and, (3) correlate their chemical properties with their phase and optical properties. To this end, we (1) investigate new VOC sources, measuring their VOC emission profiles and evaluating their organic aerosol forming potential; (2) continue to develop novel soft-ionization mass spectrometric methods to facilitate deconvolution of the complex chemical makeup of organic aerosols; and (3) use a novel method developed in our laboratory to measure particle bounce as a surrogate for particle phase. Ultimately, the unique data we acquire serves to improve our understanding of atmospheric organic chemistry and aids in improving the predictive capabilities of atmospheric chemistry models.