See our publications page and a current-ish CV
Various non-Illinois folks who have put up with me over the years (professional list only!!)
Beijing is awesome! I got to hang out with ZHANG Qiang and his group at the Center for Earth System Science as well as the HE Kebin group.
I did some chemical/transport modeling with the Climate & Global Dynamics Division of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, working with Phil Rasch. I also worked with Tad Anderson at the University of Washington.
I worked with the Atmospheric Chemistry group at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratories—especially on the ACE-Asia project, with Trish Quinn and Tim Bates. I burned a few things—mostly coal— and analyzed the smoke in a variety of ways (source characterization).
Dissertation Title: Light Absorption by Primary Particles from Fossil-Fuel
Combustion: Implications for Radiative Forcing
In plain English: When you burn fuel, why does it make smoke, what does the
smoke look like, and how does it affect the amount of sunlight entering the
Earth system? I measured particles from a lot of burning things, using
instruments that are usually applied to particles in the atmosphere.
“Interdisciplinary” means that I had professors from three departments on my
committee: Dr.
Timothy Larson (Civil Engineering); Dr. Robert Charlson
(Atmospheric Sciences), Dr.
John Kramlich and Dr.
Philip Malte (Mechanical Engineering). I can also explain what possessed me
to do an interdisciplinary Ph.D. I am indebted to the National Science Foundation and the Hertz Foundation for graduate fellowships, without which none of this unfunded research would have been possible.
Thesis Title: Experimental and Numerical Investigations of the Catalytic
Oxidation of Natural Gas
In plain English: Fuel can burn by reacting on a solid, instead of reacting as
gas molecules. In that way, you can avoid making some of the pollutants that
are usually made in flames. I did some preliminary work on setting up a catalytic
reactor and measuring and modeling the progress of the reaction in Robert
Dibble's Combustion Analysis
Laboratory. I really liked burning things, and I had a great advisor and wonderful labmates. Alas, I became fascinated with the environmental implications of combustion, so I moved on.
I have 2 brothers, 4 sisters, 2 parents, and 2 teenage daughters. Fortunately, only one husband. My favorite place to work is anywhere but the office, preferably in proximity to coffee and music.