The New York Climate Exchange will be a first-of-its-kind international center for developing and deploying dynamic solutions to our global climate crisis, while also acting as a hub for New Yorkers to benefit from the new green economy.  The unique purpose of The Exchange will be to bring together the voices of all stakeholders so that solutions to our climate crisis are not just academic or theoretical, but social and practical — including research that becomes commercially viable and ideas that lead to immediate action on the local and global levels.

You can learn more about the announcement here.

You can learn more about the New York Climate Exchange here or through this overview.

Congratulations to group members Ana Morales and Jay Tomlin who both successfully defended their dissertations. Dr. Morales is going to work at the National Institute for Standards and Technology and Dr. Tomlin is going to continue working with Dr. Laskin as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Purdue. Way to go!

From early February until mid April several researchers from Purdue, the University of Michigan, Pennsylvania State, University of Alaska-Fairbanks, and University of Albany will be doing field work in Utqiagvik, Alaska (formerly “Barrow”) for CHemistry in the Arctic: Clouds, Halogens, and Aerosols (CHACHA).  This project involves flying two airplanes in coordinated flights, around the AK North Slope, out over the sea ice in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, and over the open water, from “leads” (large cracks) in the sea ice.  The airplanes are the University of Wyoming King Air, and the Purdue Airborne Laboratory for Atmospheric Research (ALAR).

The project is focused on how sea salt particles get lofted into the air from various surfaces, how they influence clouds in the Arctic, and ultimately how climate change is impacting Arctic cloud cover, which is an important climate feedback in the Arctic.

See the project website here: https://research.asrc.albany.edu/facstaff/lance/CHACHA/

Keep track of our progress with the live Field catalog here: https://catalog.eol.ucar.edu/chacha

And Dr. Shepson’s blog here: https://you.stonybrook.edu/chachablog/

Co PI’s include the Pratt lab at the University of Michigan, the Simpson lab at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, the Fuentes lab at Pennsylvania State University, and the Lance lab at the University of Albany.

Israel Lopez-Coto has been hired as a Research Associate Professor at Stonybrook University and will be working with the Shepson lab!

Austin Hope joined the Shepson lab at Stonybrook University as a Postdoctoral Research Associate early February! He finished his PhD in Ross Salawitch and Tim Canty‘s groups at the University of Maryland. He will be working with data from the Airborne Laboratory for Atmospheric Research (ALAR) and the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to investigate the performance of various model settings as compared to measurements around New York City.

Congratulations to group member Kris Hajny who successfully defended his dissertation today. Dr. Hajny is staying with the lab as a Postdoctoral Research Associate with Dr. Shepson at Stonybrook. He will be working on an upcoming arctic field campaign CHemistry in the Arctic: Clouds, Halogens, and Aerosols (CHACHA), and running inversion analyses for the years of flight data collected around Indianapolis.

Joseph Pitt joined the Shepson lab at Stonybrook University as a Postdoctoral Research Associate early September! He finished his PhD in Grant Allen’s group at the University of Manchester in the UK. He will be working to improve our understanding of urban greenhouse gas emissions with the Airborne Laboratory for Atmospheric Research (ALAR).

Jay wins William F. Epple outstanding teaching award.

Congratulations to group members Angela Raso and Olivia Salmon who both successfully defended their dissertations today. Dr. Salmon is going back to Wisconsin to work at the Wisconsin department of natural resources and Dr. Raso is off to New Mexico to work for the New Mexico Air Quality Bureau. Way to go, and don’t forget to write!

Ana Morales received the NSF graduate research fellowship (GRFP) to support her research into organic nitrates.