The Atmospheric Chemical Mechanisms Conference Technical Program Committee is comprised of researchers and educators throughout the world who have been working in the field for many years. The committee is dedicated to the dissemination of information that can assist in the improvement of research for decades to come. They have taken the time to ensure all information presented at this conference is of the highest quality, as well as relevant and scientifically accurate.
Lead Chairs
Alexander Archibald, Lead Chair
Professor, University of Cambridge
Alex Archibald is an atmospheric chemist, who focuses on using computer models and observations to understand how man-made and natural emissions affect climate and air quality. He is a Reader and group leader for the atmospheric chemistry modelling group in the Department of Chemistry and is the Science Director of the UKCA model (www.ukca.ac.uk). In addition he is the atmospheric composition theme leader for the NERC ACSIS project (www.acsis.ac.uk), which is looking at the causes and effects of climate and atmospheric composition change in the North Atlantic region.
Kelley Barsanti, Lead Chair
Adjunct Faculty; Senior Scientist, University of California Riverside; National Center for Atmospheric Research
Kelley Barsanti is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical & Environmental Engineering and the Center for Environmental Research & Technology at UC Riverside. Her research interests are in improving the process-level understanding and model representation of fine particulate matter (PM) in air quality models. Her primary research tools include comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography and multi-scale mechanistic models. Current research projects include improving the speciation of organic compounds in emissions inventories for wildland fires; advancing the model representation of secondary organic PM formation in smoke plumes; and evaluating the effects of COVD-19 shelter-in-place restrictions on air quality in the Los Angeles Basin. She has authored or co-authored over 50 papers on these and related topics.
Carl Percival, Chair Adviser
Jet Propulsion Laboratory – NASA
Carl Percival is an atmospheric chemist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His research is in three main areas: the first is the development of methods to directly observe fundamental gas phase kinetics of key reactions of atmospheric importance in the laboratory. The second area of work focuses on the development of novel analytical techniques to quantify trace species in the atmosphere and the third area is on the study of the interaction of gases with aerosols
Additional Committee Members
Becky Alexander
Professor, University of Washington
Becky Alexander is a Professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences and the Director of the Program on Climate Change at the University of Washington. Her research group studies the atmospheric chemistry of reactive sulfur, nitrogen, and halogens in the lower atmosphere. As a co-PI of UW IsoLab, her group measures the isotopic composition of aerosols to provide information on their sources and chemical formation pathways. Her research group also utilizes and contributes to the scientific development of a global chemical transport model, GEOS-Chem.
Jeremy Avise
California Air Resources Board
Dr. Jeremy Avise is Chief of the Modeling and Meteorology Branch at the California Air Resources Board (CARB). Jeremy leads a team of scientists, engineers, and meteorologists who are responsible for conducting regional and local scale modeling in support of State Implementation Plan (SIP) development for ozone and PM2.5, regulatory/rule development, air toxics risk assessments, and CARB’s Community Air Protection Program. In addition, Jeremy’s team oversees the State’s Smoke Management program for agricultural and prescribed burning.
Rebecca Buchholz
National Center for Atmospheric Research
Dr. Rebecca Buchholz completed her PhD at the Center for Atmospheric Chemistry, at the
University of Wollongong, in Australia, studying Southern Hemisphere atmospheric composition
using a range of measurement and modeling techniques. In October, 2014 she started a
Postdoctoral position in the MOPITT group within ACOM/NCAR and joined the team as a
Project Scientist in 2017. Her current research uses global climate-chemistry modeling and
remote sensing to answer questions about air quality and atmospheric composition, with a
particular focus on the impact of wildfire emissions.
Rebecca Caravan
Argonne National Laboratory
Rebecca Caravan is an Assistant Chemist at Argonne National Laboratory. Her research focuses on the fundamental chemical kinetics, reaction mechanisms, and tropospheric impacts of intermediates such as carbonyl oxide Criegee intermediates and peroxy radicals via direct laboratory studies using both tabletop and synchrotron techniques. Before joining Argonne, she received her PhD from the University of Leeds, was a postdoctoral researcher at Sandia National Laboratories (with Dr. Craig A. Taatjes) and an NPP fellow at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (with Dr. Carl Percival).
Emma D'Ambro
US EPA
Emma D’Ambro received a bachelor’s in Chemistry from Le Moyne College in Syracuse, NY. She then attended the University of Washington in Seattle to study biogenic SOA formation via chemical ionization mass spectrometry, chemically explicit box modeling, and quantum rate calculations. She joined the EPA in 2019 to study the emissions and fate of PFAS using their flagship air quality model, CMAQ.
Celia Faiola
UC Irvine
Georgios Gkatzelis
Forschungszentrum Jülich
Dr. Gkatzelis is a senior scientist in the field of atmospheric chemistry at Research Center Jülich, Germany. The majority of his research has been on the emissions, chemical evolution, and impacts of organic trace gases to air quality in the Earth’s atmosphere. His research background includes multiple chamber and field studies in Europe, China, and the US. Specifically, he measures organic trace gases using state-of-the-art mass spectrometers that he deploys on ground site, mobile laboratory, and aircraft platforms in order to identify, and quantify their emissions and potential to form secondary pollutants including ozone and particulate matter.
Jim Kelly
US EPA
Jim is an Environmental Scientist with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency where he leads the Air Quality Assessment Division's PM NAAQS Review Team. Prior to this, he held positions at the California Air Resources Board, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the CIIT Centers for Health Research related to air quality modeling and particle dosimetry. Jim earned a PhD from UC Davis with a dissertation on water uptake by atmospheric particles.
Makoto Kelp
Stanford University
Makoto Kelp is a NOAA Climate & Global Change postdoctoral fellow in the Climate and Earth System Dynamics group at Stanford University. He holds a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Chemistry from Harvard University and a B.A. in Chemistry from Reed College. Makoto leverages data-driven methods, including machine learning and computational sensing, to uncover new perspectives in atmospheric chemistry and land-climate-human interactions. He places a special focus on how machine learning integration can facilitate the next generation of global atmosphere models and how data-driven science can improve our understanding of the interplay among fires, climate, and society in Western North America.
Anoop Mahajan
Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology
I work on the chemistry of the atmosphere, with a focus on chemistry-climate interactions. My research interests are primarily based on the chemistry of the surface ocean and lower atmosphere, dealing with trace gases such as reactive halogen species (RHS), volatile organic compounds (VOCs including dimethyl sulphide) and ozone, and their effect on the oxidation capacity, aerosol formation and Earth’s radiation budget. This involves understanding atmospheric chemistry on short timescales (air pollution) and long timescales (greenhouse gases, climate effects). Over the last twenty years, I have been involved in numerous projects worldwide – including more than 20 field campaigns, including in both polar regions. I use a three-pronged approach: instrument development, field observations and computer models at different scales. I have led large projects, including the most recent Indian Scientific Expedition to the Southern Ocean.
Abdullah Mahmud
Air Resources Engineer, California Air Resources Board
Abdullah is primarily interested in atmospheric chemistry of air pollutants, computational modeling and analysis of air quality, and climate change impacts on regional air quality. He obtained his PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California at Davis. Prior to joining CARB, he worked in academia and NGOs.
Claudia Mohr
Stockholm University
My main research interest are atmospheric aerosols: Tiny airborne particles with huge impacts on climate and air quality – two topics that are of imminent importance for society and the environment. Aerosols are at the interface of the different spheres of the planet and the different phases in the atmosphere, and thus key to understanding biogeochemical processes. The characterization of the chemical composition of (organic) aerosol particles and organic trace gases by means of advanced mass spectrometric techniques, and the investigation of their sources, formation and transformation processes, and fate in the atmosphere in the field and laboratory, lie at the heart of my research.
Brett Palm
National Center for Atmospheric Research
Brett Palm is an atmospheric chemist at the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR). His research focuses on studying the roles of organic compounds in atmospheric oxidation processes, including the evolution of organic emissions and the subsequent secondary organic aerosol formation. To studies these topics, his research tools include developing and deploying cutting edge mass spectrometric techniques to make airborne ambient measurements as well as using explicit modeling to interpret and expand upon those measurements. Current research projects include applying these techniques to interpret the evolution of wildfire emissions and the impacts downwind. Prior to NSF NCAR, Brett earned his PhD at the University of Colorado-Boulder and was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Washington.
Ilona Riipenen
Stockholm University
Matti Rissanen
University of Helsinki & Tampere University
Matti Rissanen is currently a tenure track associate professor and the lead of the Radical Aerosol Physical Chemistry research group in the Aerosol Physics laboratory of the Tampere University. He obtained his M.Sc. (Honors) and Ph.D. (Laudatur) from the Physical Chemistry laboratory of the University of Helsinki studying the temperature- and pressure-dependent kinetics of gas-phase free radical reactions. He is an author of over 90 publications, and his main research focuses on the in situ formation of atmospheric aerosol precursors and the related development of research instrumentation. He is a Finnish Academy Research Fellow and a holder of the prestigious European Research Council Consolidator Grant.
Alfonso Saiz Lopez
CSIC
Alfonso Saiz-Lopez is an atmospheric chemist at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), where he leads the Department of Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate. His research combines theory, laboratory and field measurements, and models to study the chemistry of the troposphere and stratosphere, and chemistry-climate interactions.
Rebecca Schwantes
NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory
I am a research chemist at the NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory in the Atmospheric Composition Modeling Program. My research focuses on updating chemical mechanisms to improve simulated ozone and secondary organic aerosols in 3D models like WRF-Chem and our new NOAA model called UFS-Chem. I recently co-led a major aircraft field campaign called AEROMMA (Atmospheric Emissions and Reactions Observed from Megacities to Marine Areas), which sampled urban air pollution in several North American megacities. I plan to use the AEROMMA dataset to evaluate emissions and chemical processes in models in urban environments. Currently, I am particularly interested in improving understanding and prediction of urban air pollution and better quantifying the co-benefits from climate change mitigation efforts on air quality.
Sam Silva
University of Southern California
Sam Silva is an assistant professor in the Department of Earth Sciences and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Southern California. His research is focused on air pollution and climate change, with particular interest in the convergence of traditional computational methods with modern data science and artificial intelligence techniques.
Domenico Taraborrelli
Forschungszentrum Jülich
Frank Winiberg
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Frank’s research background is in gas-phase physical chemistry; focusing on laboratory-based photochemistry research for Earth’s Troposphere and Stratosphere. More recently he has focused on atmospheric chemistry that is important to Venus and Exoplanets. Alongside the chemistry research, he is working on design and development of a miniaturized semiconductor laser-based trace gas sensors for Earth science and manned spaceflight applications, as well as the remote sensing Airborne Scanning Microwave Limb Sounder (A-SMLS) for monitoring trace gases in the stratosphere from airborne platforms.
Melissa Venecek
California Air Resources Board
Member of the atmospheric modeling and support section at the California Air Resource Board. Received a PhD in atmospheric sciences from the University of California, Davis with an emphasis on air quality modeling and emissions processing. Research interests include characterization of gas and particle phase emission sources, spatial allocation of area-wide emission sources, identification of toxic air contaminants and health risks on impacted communities, gas-phase reactions of volatile organic compounds and VOC contribution to ozone formation (reactivity).
Luc Vereecken
Forschungszentrum Jülich
Luc Vereecken has been working on theoretical kinetic predictions of rate coefficients, chemical mechanisms, and structure-activity relationships for most of his career. After obtaining his PhD at the University of Leuven, Belgium, and doing extended postdocs there, he worked at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany, and is currently group leader in theoretical atmospheric chemistry at the Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH in Jülich, Germany.