Lake spray aerosol project highlighted in Michigan Sea Grant newsletter

Nicole's upcoming project analyzing lake spray aerosols created during harmful algal blooms on the Great Lakes was highlighted in the Michigan Sea Grant newsletter! Nicole's project, along with 3 other projects lead by graduate students, are described here. Check it out!

Nancy First Doctoral Seminar Talk

Today, Nancy gave her first doctoral seminar talk in Environment Health Science. Dr. Ault and all the lab came to support her. This talk is about her first project after she joined the lab and went very well. This is a great opportunity for her to learn and know how to make everyone without an aerosol background to easily understand.

After the talk, people are very interested in her research and asked many good questions. Professor Rita Loch gave her lots of good comments and encouragement. Hopefully, this kind of opportunity will have more in the future!

Nicole Becomes a PhD Candidate!

Nicole is the Ault Lab's newest PhD Candidate in Chemistry! She successfully passed her oral examination, titled Single Particle Chemical Characterization of Atmospheric Aerosols from Secondary Organic, Freshwater, and Urban Sources. Nicole uses electron microscopy, Raman micro spectroscopy, and single particle mass spectrometry to analyze both ambient and laboratory generated aerosols. Congrats!

Andrew Ault selected as Sloan Research Fellow in Chemistry!

Professor Ault was selected as a Sloan Research Fellow in Chemistry. From the Sloan Foundation website:
https://sloan.org/fellowships/2018-Fellows

"The Sloan Research Fellowships seek to stimulate fundamental research by early-career scientists and scholars of outstanding promise."

"These two-year fellowships are awarded yearly to 126 researchers in recognition of distinguished performance and a unique potential to make substantial contributions to their field"

Professor Ault was 1 of 23 assistant professors of chemistry in the US and Canada chosen for this prestigious award across all disciplines of chemistry. The selection was based on Professor Ault's work in the area of physical/analytical chemistry focused on studies of atmospheric aerosols and engineered nanoparticles. The nomination noted the Ault Group's development of novel spectroscopic measurements for measuring aerosol acidity and phase, as well as contributions to understanding aerosol production from freshwater lakes and ingested engineered nanoparticles.

The announcement was made in an ad in the New York Times (pdf)!

This award recognizes all of the great work by members of the Ault Group over the past few years!

Secondary Organic Aerosol paper in ES&T

Recently a new paper titled “Effect of Aerosol-Phase State on Secondary Organic Aerosol Formation from the Reactive Uptake of Isoprene-Derived Epoxydiols (IEPOX)” by Dr. Jason Surratt’s group and Dr. Ault’s group has been accepted in Environmental Science and Technology Letters Check it out!

This study investigated how aerosol-phase state plays an important role in reactive uptake processes by quantify uptake coefficient of IEPOX on acidic ammonium sulfate particles coated with secondary organic aerosol (SOA) derived from α-pinene ozonolysis. The Ault lab used atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to study the morphology of α-pinene SOA particles, and confirmed phase separation.

AFM image of phase separated a-pinene SOA, showing core shell structure.

Lake Spray Aerosol Paper Chosen for ES&T Cover Art, Gains Media Attention!

A recent collaborative paper between the Ault and Pratt Groups, led by Nate May was chosen for the cover art of Environmental Science and Technology for the week of January 18, 2018. The paper focuses on aerosol emitted from Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) and had multiple stories about it in print (Michigan News, Popular Science) and over the radio (Michigan Radio (NPR) in Ann Arbor and WCMU in Northern and Central Michigan). This work involved a broad team grad students, a postdoc, and undergraduates across the two groups and shows the need for further studies of aerosol production from freshwater lakes. Watch for more exciting work in this space!

Michigan News
Michigan Radio

Ault lab preparing for field study to North Carolina

Ault lab members have been working hard on preparing the single particle ATOFMS for an upcoming field study. This summer, the Ault group will be traveling to Chapel Hill, North Carolina where we will be collaborating with Jason Surratt's lab to create and analyze secondary organic aerosol particles generated in the Surratt lab indoor chamber.

      

PhD students Nick Ellsworth and Nicole Olson tuning the ATOFMS.