The spring quarter has culminated with a few awards to recognize undergraduate excellence:  two students from the group received awards at the 2024 Chemistry Department Undergraduate Awards Ceremony including Katelyn who was awarded the Michael E. Gebel Undergraduate Award for her work on synthesizing self assembled monolayers (SAM) on silica particles to ultimately study organic gas uptake and probe particle growth, and Patricia who was awarded the ACS Environmental Chemistry Undergraduate Award for her work on new particle formation from the reaction of methanesulfonic acid with multifunctional amines.  Patricia will be headed soon to Univ. of California, San Diego where she will be starting a graduate program in atmospheric chemistry.

In addition, our postdoctoral fellow, Kristen, was awarded a safety award for her work in promoting a strong safety culture in the lab, and being a positive role model for exemplary safety practice!  Kristen will be headed soon to Tennessee where she will start a professor position at a primarily undergraduate institution.

Way to go everyone, Congratulations!

Three new undergraduate students joined the Finlayson-Pitts research group this year, Katelynne Pacaud working on synthesizing self-assembled monolayers for studying uptake of gases onto various ordered and known organic surfaces, Cheyenne Begay working on characterizing the surface of particles with MAIV mass spectrometry and Maryam Parvinian studying oxidation of atmospherically relevant emerging contaminants – Welcome to the group everyone!

On February 06, the study led by Dr Yiming Qi and Dr Lisa Wingen on peroxides analysis on the surface of particles using MAIV mass spectrometry was highlighted in Particulars, the newsletters from the American Association for Aerosol Research (AAAR) – Way to go!

On October 04th, 2023, Prof. B. J. Finlayson-Pitts received the prestigious David Sinclair Award from the American Association for Aerosol Research.  This award recognizes “sustained excellence in aerosol research and technology by an established scientist still active in his/her career” –

And…

On October 26th, 2023, Prof. B. J. Finlayson-Pitts was honored with the 2023 ‘Outstanding Faculty Achievement’ award at the 52th Anniversary of the UCI Alumni Lauds & Laurels ceremony. This award recognizes her outstanding service to the community, professional excellence, and campus involvement.

Congratulation Prof. Finlayson-Pitts!

It’s been a busy summer in the Finlayson-Pitts group! Here are a few highlights:

From June 26th to July 25th , we welcomed a group of two high school students from the ALMA Science Academy along with two undergraduate student mentors.  Together they learn about the particulate matter Purple Air monitors, collect air quality data from selected monitors located in Santa Ana, studied PM concentration and trends over a month period and, presented their data to our July DOJ team meeting.

On Aug. 08th, Patricia participated in the SoCal Undergraduate Chemistry Research Symposium hosted by UCI.  She presented her work on the formation of sub-10 nm particles from the reaction of methanesulfonic acid and 4-aminobutanol, and she was awarded the Best Poster Award for her presentation – Congratulations Patricia!

For the second year consecutive, Ellie joined us for summer research.  For her new project, she ran the Smith group’s Chemical Ionization Mass Spectrometer (CIMS) where she compared measurements of HOMs to those measured with Matrix Assisted Ionization in Vacuum (MAIV), also dubbed as “Magic ionization” by the Trimpin group at Wayne State University.