Urban air quality impacts what people breathe!  The chemistry that controls the air in cities is changing as both emissions and temperatures change.

We use a combination of lab experiments, field observations, and modeling tools to understand the non-linear impacts of changing temperatures and emissions on urban air.  Specifically, we focus on changes in NOx and VOC emissions and how those impact the production of ozone and secondary organic aerosol (SOA).

Atmospheric aerosols are key to two of today’s most important environmental concerns: climate and air quality.  Much of the fine aerosol mass in the atmosphere is organic, and much of that mass is secondary (produced from the chemistry of organics emitted into the gas phase).  However, the chemistry that leads to secondary organic aerosol (SOA) production is highly complex.

We are focused on ways to improve our laboratory experiments of SOA production, and we are thinking about ways we can use our lab experiments to develop improved model descriptions of SOA chemistry.

Organic nitrates can be important contributors to SOA mass in a variety of environments; hence, understanding organic nitrate chemistry is vital for accurate predictions of atmospheric SOA chemistry.  However, our current models struggle to capture both the observed concentrations and volatility of atmospheric organic nitrates.

We are focused on laboratory experiments to unravel chemical pathways for organic nitrate formation that will help us explain our field observations.