Kolb Lecture – Doug Worsnop (Aerodyne)

The Charles E. Kolb ’67 Lecture Series

Aerodyne Research and the family of the late Dr. Kolb (1945-2020) established this lecture series on current topics in atmospheric and environmental chemistry with the aim of encouraging participation from academic departments across MIT, in honor of his collegial personality and multidisciplinary approach to science.

Atmospheric Aerosol: Mass Spectrometry, Air Quality and Climate

Despite much effort in the past decades, uncertainties in both climate impacts and health effects of atmospheric aerosols remain large. During the last 25 years, aerosol mass spectrometry (AMS) has shown that sub-micron aerosol chemical composition is roughly 50:50 inorganic and organic worldwide, with secondary highly oxidized organics dominating the latter. Parallel application of chemical ionization mass spectrometry (CIMS) has provided the first observation of molecular cluster ions involved in atmospheric nucleation, including detection of highly oxidized multifunctional (HOM) organics in the gas phase. These results will be discussed in the context of their impact on air quality and climate; from the boreal forest to Chinese megacities.

3:30 pm talk in 55-110.
Reception to follow in the Building 55 atrium.

Questions? Contact Kayla Bauer: kbauer@mit.edu

Douglas R. Worsnop received his PhD in chemistry from Harvard University (1982); was a Humboldt Fellow in Physics at the University of Freiburg, Germany; joined Aerodyne Research, outside Boston, in 1985. Now Senior Vice-President, he also has been FiDiPro Professor of Physics in INAR at the University of Helsinki since 2007. A Fellow of AAAS, AGU and AAAR, winner of the Benjamin Liu Prize for Aerosol Instrumentation (AAAR), the Yoram Kaufmann Award for Unselfish Cooperation in Research (AGU), the Fuchs Memorial Award (IARA) for outstanding research in aerosol science and the ACS Award for Creativity in Environmental Science, he has 700 publications in chemical kinetics and aerosol chemistry, specializing in laboratory and field studies of the interactions of gases and aerosol particles.