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Research in Deborah Gross's Lab at Carleton College
Atmospheric Chemistry · Analytical Chemistry · Environmental Chemistry
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A number of Carleton College students have been part of my research group. Their names, the dates they were involved in aerosol research in my group, and photos are shown here.
June 2007 - present Nick Brown ('08)
Claire Liepmann ('09)
Juan Medrano ('09)
This is a picture of Claire, Juan, and Nick (from left to right) with "Gromit" in the lab at Carleton College. Sept. 2005 - Aug. 2006 Katie Barton ('07)*
John Choiniere ('07)*
*during academic year
Deborah was on sabbatical at the Laboratory of Atmospheric Chemistry at the Paul Scherrer Insititue, in Villigen Switzerland from Sept. 2005 - Jan. 2006. From February 2006 - Aug. 2006 she was on sabbatical in Peter McMurry's lab in the Particle Technology Laboratory in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Minnesota. June 2005 - Sept. 2005: Andy Ault ('05)
Melanie Yuen ('06)
Katie Barton ('07)
John Choiniere ('07)
This is a picture of Katie, John, Melanie and Andy (from left to right) aligning one of the diode lasers on our ATOFMS instrument ("Gromit") in the lab at Carleton College. June 2004 - June 2005: Lexie Schmitt ('04)
Andy Ault ('05)
Melaine Yuen ('06)
This is a picture of Andy, Lexie, and Melanie (from left to right) with our group's ATOFMS instrument "Gromit" in the lab at Carleton College. June 2003 - June 2004: Lexie Schmitt ('04)
Renee Frontiera ('04)
Margie Mattmann ('05)
This is a picture of Margie, Renee, and Lexie (from left to right) with our group's ATOFMS instrument "Gromit" in the lab at Carleton College. June 2002 - June 2003: Amy Silverberg ('02)
Lexie Schmitt ('04)
This is a picture of Lexie (left) and Amy (right) working with our group's ATOFMS instrument "Gromit", in Atlanta, August 2002. This work was part of the ANARChE study. June 2001 - June 2002: Bill Galush ('02)
Amy Silverberg ('02)
This is a picture of Bill (left) and Amy (right) working with the chemistry department's ion-trap mass spectrometer. June 2000 - June 2001:
Julia Jarvis ('01)
Ellen Sukovich ('01)
This is a picture of Ellen (left) and Julia (right) at the Caldecott Tunnel, August 2000.
June 1999 - June 2000:
Alex Barron ('00)
Ben Warren ('00)
This is a picture of Alex (left)and Ben (right) at the Atlanta SuperSite, August 1999.
Research in my lab focuses on understanding the properties of aerosol particles in the troposphere. Specifically, we are interested in these factors:
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We are interested in understanding these aerosol properties on the level of the individual particle, in order to gain a more detailed understanding of the variability of aerosol pollution in the ambient troposphere. Much of our work has been done in collaboration with Professor Kimberly Prather at the University of California, Riverside, who developed the Aerosol Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometer (ATOFMS), a transportable instrument capable of measuring size and chemical composition of individual aerosol particles. We have been lucky enough to work with these instruments in the summers of 1999 and 2000.
Since 1999, research in my group has been carried out at Carleton College, at an E.P.A. SuperSite in Atlanta, GA, and in the Caldecott Tunnel in Berkeley, CA. In each of these sites, we have been working with individual aerosol particle data. Brief descriptions and links to relevant sites are given below.
Research in my group has been carried out in a number of locations in addition to the ongoing work we do here at Carleton. Brief information about the two field studies we've participated in is given here. More information will follow, eventually.
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Summer 1999 |
We were in Atlanta from late July through the middle of August, for the setup and first half of this "SuperSite" experiment. This site included an amazing array of aerosol measurement, pretty much if you can imagine it, it was there. Our data is giving us insight into the sources of aerosol pollution in Atlanta, as well as the changes these particles undergo in the atmosphere due to chemical reactions. |
| We spent 2.5 weeks in the Caldecott Tunnel in Berkeley, measuring the emissions from the vehicles travelling through it. This is truly one of the best tunnels one could imagine for measuring vehicle emissions, due to the combination of:
The eventual goal is to understand the similarities and differences between the emissions from HDV and LDV, under real-world operating conditions. |
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| Diesel Engine Measurements at the Engine Research Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison Madison, WI Spring, 2002 |
For a few weeks in Spring, 2002, Carleton's ATOFMS instrument, Gromit, made measurements in Madison, WI, in collaboration with Jamie Schauer's and David Foster's groups. In addition to measurements of diesel exhaust particles from a research diesel engine, a variety of source characterization experiments were also carried out. |
| Atlanta - Aerosol Nucleation and Real-time Characterization Experiment (ANARChE), 2002 Atlanta, GA Summer 2002 |
During summer 2002, we spent 6 weeks in Atlanta, working with two experiemnts using ATOFMS instruments:
The goal of the experiment is to understand the chemical composition of particles which have different, and known, hygroscopicity, volatility, and mass. |
Mercury Roadshow 1 Southern Colorado and Yellowstone National Park Summer 2003 |
During summer 2003, we worked with Jamie Schauer's group at UW-Madison and with researchers from the US Geological Survey in Middleton, WI, to characterize the ambient aerosol along side real-time speciated mercury measurements. We hope to understand the composition changes of the ambient aerosol as correlated with changes in concentration of mercury species. |
Mercury Roadshow 2 East St. Louis Winter 2003 - 2004 |
During winter 2003 - 2004, we deployed the ATOFMS, again along side Jamie Schauer's group and the USGS, at the Supersite faciltiy in East St. Louis (run by Jay Turner from Washington University). Again, we are looking for interesting trends in the ambient aerosol composition, and are comparing to other real time measurements, including speciated mercury. |
| Research at Carleton College Norhtfield, MN Ongoing |
When we are not in the field, my research group spends its time analyzing the data collected during field measurement campaigns. This is a very time-consuming task, as each study generates many gigabytes of data from the ATOFMS instrument. Aditional data on aerosol properties (size distributions, total mass, etc.) are also acquired, so there are many variables to correlate. We are actively working with computer scientists at Carleton and at UW-Madison to develop data mining software for atmospheric data sets, including the ATOFMS data. |
Mercury Roadshow 3 Mt. Horeb, WI Summer 2004 |
During August of 2004, we operated the ATOFMS alongside Jamie Schauer's group and the USGS group in Mt. Horeb, WI. This time, we were located on the property of Mark Olson, one of the USGS scientists. Gromit was run in an old dairybarn. |
MS-ChAOS and Smog Chamber Experiments PSI, Villigen Switzerland October 2005 - January 2006 |
During the first half of the 2005-2006 academic year, Gromit travelled to Switzerland! Gromit was operated at the smog chamber in the Laboratory for Atmospheric Chemistry at the Paul Scherrer Institute in Villigen, Switzerland. We studied the secondary organic aerosol produced from the photo-oxidation of volatile organic carbon precursors under a variety of conditions. For some experiments, we were part of a large group of visitors, and many instruments were deployed on the chamber. In other cases, we worked with the students and staff at PSI. |
AEROWOOD Roveredo, Switzerland November - December, 2005 |
While in Switzlerand, Gromit and I participated in the Winter 2005 version of the AEROWOOD study -- a study designed to determine the relative contribution of woodsmoke and vehicle emissions to pollution in various regions of Switzerland. The Roveredo measurements in wintertime take advantage of the strong inversions that are set up in the narrow valley in which Roveredo is located -- the emissions from many woodstoves and the vehicles driving through the valley are essentially trapped all day. Many research groups were participating in this PSI-led study. |
Biomass Combustion Studies University of Minnesota February - August, 2006 |
After returning to the US, Gromit and I moved in at the University of Minnesota, where we participated in a variety of measurements campaigns, all of which focus on biofuels of one kind or another:
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Publications:
Conference Presentations:
This is a list of presentations given by members of my
research group about the results they have obtained from their
analyses of ATOFMS data from the studies above.
This page is created and maintained by
Deborah
S. Gross.
If you have questions or comments, please send
E-mail.