Congratulations to Jenny & Zhuoyu!

Jenny graduated this week with B.S. degrees in Chemistry and Program in the Environment, and Zhuoyu received a B.S. degree in Chemistry through the Honors Program!  Starting this fall, Jenny will be pursuing a Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Colorado Boulder, and Zhuoyu will be pursuing a Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Washington!  Good luck Jenny and Zhuoyu!!

Prof. Kerri Pratt & Jennifer Berry

Congratulations Jenny, Mark, & Alexa!

Congratulations to Jennifer Berry for being awarded the 2015 American Chemical Society Analytical Chemistry Award!  This award was given to one graduating senior from the University of Michigan Department of Chemistry.  Jenny will continue her research in the Pratt lab through the summer and then start graduate school in the fall at the University of Colorado, Boulder to pursue a PhD in Chemistry.

Congratulations to Mark Hartwig and Alexa Watson for being chosen to be part of the 2015 Chemistry Summer Undergraduate Research Program!  Mark is a rising senior undergraduate chemistry major, and Alexa is a rising sophomore undergraduate biochemistry major.  They will start undergraduate research in the Pratt lab in May!

Michigan Geophysical Union Symposium

On Wednesday April 1, 2015, Pratt lab graduate students Nate May, Matt Gunsch, and Eric Boone and undergraduate student Evan Schwartz (me) presented posters at the 12th Annual Michigan Geophysical Union Symposium.  Each participant was judged by two separate judges, and poster scores were separated into categories by department.  Rebecca Craig, second year graduate student in the Ault lab, and Matt Gunsch won 1st and 2nd place for the chemistry department, and I was fortunate enough to win the overall Student Choice award for the event.  Congratulations to all the participants on a great job!

Left to Right: Rebecca Craig (Ault Lab), Matt Gunsch, and Evan Schwartz

Photo Credit: Rebecca Craig

Graduate Student Matt Gunsch

Photo Credit: Laura Hopkins

Graduate Student Eric Boone

Photo Credit: Laura Hopkins

Graduate Student Nate May

Photo Credit: Laura Hopkins

Undergraduate Student Evan Schwartz (Myself)

Photo Credit: Nate May

Welcome Dr. Peter Peterson!

Welcome to our new post-doc Dr. Peter Peterson from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks!  Peter will be working on our NASA project to examine Arctic bromine chemistry by analyzing and modeling aircraft data in collaboration with the University of Heidelberg and University of East Anglia.

Congrats to PhD student Nate May!

Congratulations to Chemistry Ph.D. student Nate May for passing his candidacy exam!

New Fall Group Photo!

Front row (left to right):
Zhuoyu Peng (senior, Chemistry & Program in the Environment)
Rachel Kirpes (fall graduate rotation student, Chemistry)
Jennifer Berry (senior, Chemistry & Program in the Environment)
Natalie Cleaveland (fall graduate rotation student, Chemistry)
Olivia Sieggreen (fall graduate rotation student, Chemistry)

Back row (left to right):
Nate May (2nd year Ph.D. student, Chemistry)
Eric Boone (2nd year M.S. student, Chemistry)
Prof. Kerri Pratt
Matt Gunsch (3rd year Ph.D. student, Chemistry)
Stephen McNamara (fall graduate rotation student, Chemistry)
Garrett Welshofer (fall graduate rotation student, Chemistry)
Evan Schwartz (senior, Biochemistry)

Matt attends AAAR 2014 Conference

I (Matt Gunsch) recently attended the 33rd Annual American Association for Aerosol Research Conference in Orlando, Florida to present a poster on my research. The poster focused on results from our July 2014 field campaign to the University of Michigan Biological Station, where I focused on detecting and characterizing single aerosol particles using the ATOFMS. During this field campaign, we were able to characterize the influence of long range transported particles on the remote region where we were stationed. We are currently preparing a manuscript on this research as well.  This was my first national conference attended in graduate school, and it was a great experience to interact with so many other research groups within the field. I also can't complain about the location of the conference, which allowed me to escape to Florida from the cold Fall of Michigan!

I was also a student assistant for the duration of the conference, which allowed me to get a better understanding on what it takes for a conference to run. A benefit of being a student assistant was that we were allowed to attend tutorial sessions for free. It also allowed me to talk with the presenters of the sessions I was helping out with, which was a nice bonus. I'd recommend that when given the chance graduate students offer to be a student assistant so they are more integrated with the conference than they would be otherwise.