News

2025

June 2025 - Our manuscript exploring the phase and hygrpscopic growth of aerosol particles containing biomass burning related organic compounds internally mixed with inorganic salts is published in ES&T: Air, as part of the John H. Seinfeld Festschrift. Check out the link on the publications page! 

January 2025 - Our manuscript exploring how ammonium sulfate can stabilize the presence of imidazoles in aerosol particles was published in ACS Earth and Space Chemistry. Check out the link on the publications page! 

2024

November 2024 - Craig Sheldon sucessfully defends his thesis to earn his PhD. Congratulations Dr Sheldon! 

October 2024 - Members of the Davies lab travel to Albuquerque for the American Association for Aerosol Research annual conference.

September 2024 - The Davies lab is co-PI on a funded award from the Sloan Foundation to study prebiotic chemistry in aerosol droplets. Looking forward to working with PI Thomas Preston (McGill University) and co-PI's Timothy Lyons (UCR) and Rebecca Rapf (Trinity University) on this project!  

May 2024 - The Davies lab took delivery of a new (refurbished!) LTQ XL Mass Spectrometer, which will add to our mass spectrometry capabilities. Setup and installation in June! 

April 2024 - Prof Davies travels to Pennsylvania to give invited seminars at Penn State and Carnegie Mellon University. 

April 2024 - Students from the Davies Lab travel to Lake Arrowhead to participate in the UC Chemical Symposium, with several posters and presentations showcasing work from the group.

February 2024 - The Davies lab is co-PI on a funded award from the Simon's Foundation to study the possible role of aerosol particles for Solar Radiation Management. Looking forward to working with PI Thomas Preston (McGill University) and co-PI Alison Bain (Oregon State) on this project!  

February 2024 - Our manuscript exploring some of the physicochemical properties of biomass burning compounds was published in ES&T:Air. Check out the link on the publications page! 

January 2024 - Our recent work studying the evaporation of semi-volatile organic material from phase separted particles is published in Chemical Science. Congrats to lead author Jack Choczynski and all the co-authors. 

2023

November/December 2023 - The 2nd year students (Malsha, Stephanie, Erin and Prakriti) all pass their Second Year Research Exams. Congrats all! Onwards to Oral Exams in the Spring! 

October 2023 - Craig and Prof Davies travel to Portland, OR for the 2023 AAAR conference to present talks on water transport in amorphous particles and brown carbon.

July 2023 - Katie Morton and Teresa Palacios Diaz return to UCR for three weeks to continue work on our collaborative NSF project with Ryan Davis.

July 2023 - Prof Davies receives tenure and is promoted to Associated Professor! Thank you to all of the students and mentors over the years that made this possible 😀

June 2023 - Abhi Gowder (UCR SOM) joins the lab for a short summer externship to learn about the connection between aerosol physical chemistry and the health sciences! Welcome Abhi! 

June 2023 - The first Davies lab students graduate with their PhD's. Dr Chelsea Price received her degree in absentia, while Dr Ravleen Kaur Kohli braved the Riverside heat to be hooded by Prof Davies. Congratulations to you both and best wishes for the future! 

April 2023 - Prof Davies travels to Indianapolis, IN to attend the ACS Spring conference.

March 2023 - Ravleen Kaur Kohli sucessfuly defends her thesis to become the second member of the Davies Lab to earn their PhD. Congratulations Dr Kaur Kohli! Check out her newly updated photo in the People page! 

March 2023 - The Davies lab met with Amanda Frossard from University of Georgia during her visit to UCR.

February 2023- The Davies lab welcomes new furniture into the lab with the arrival of a monster 12'x5' optical table. Looking forward to setting up lots of exciting new experiments! 

February 2023 - The Davies lab hosted Andrew Ault from University of Michigan for a seminar and to meet with faculty and students in UCR AAAR Student Chapter. 

January 2023 - Prof Davies assumes the faculty mentor role in the UCR AAAR Student Chapter! Looking forward to exciting activities involving aerosol students at UCR in the future. Thank you to graduate students Ryan Drover and Raphael Mayorga for their continued leadership roles in the chapter. 

2022

December 2022 - The Davies lab formally welcomes new 1st year students into the lab. Check out their profiles in the People page! Welcome to Stephanie Salas, Malsha Amugoda, Prakriti Singh, and Erin Bowey (co-supervised with Roya Bahreini)!

December 2022 - Chelsea Price sucessfuly defends her thesis to become the first member of the Davies Lab to earn their PhD. Congratulations Dr Price! 

October 2022 - Prof Davies and Ravleen travel to Raleigh, NC to attend the AAAR conference to give and invited talk and two contributed presentations. 

September 2022 - Prof Davies travels to University of Central Florida to meet with faculty and students and give an invited seminar.

September 2022 - Our measurements using the high temperature EDB trap are published in JPC:A. Congratulations to lead authors Chelsea and Ravleen, and undergraduate co-author Bilal Shokoor.

September 2022 - Undergraduate student Jorge Salazar joins the lab to work on characterizing water diffusion rates in amorphous aerosol particles. 

July 2022 - Stephanie Salas joins the group as part of the GradEdge/JumpStart program for 8 weeks. 

June 2022 - Trinity University students Katie Morton and Teresa Palacios Diaz visit the lab for two weeks as part of our collaborative NSF project with Ryan Davis.

June 2022 - Katherine Han from UCR School of Medicine joins the lab for a 6 week summer project to explore the connection between aerosol physical chemistry and health. 

June 2022 - Congratulations to Ravleen Kaur Kohli for winning the UCR Chemistry Department Sawyer Award in Analytical Chemistry. Read more about Ravleen's accomplishments here. 

May 2022 - Prof Davies travels to Arrowhead, CA for the long-awaited Molecular Understanding of Atmospheric Aerosol (MUOAA)  conference centered around the physical chemistry of aerosol.

April 2022  - Prof Davies visits CSU Fullerton and gives a seminar in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Many thanks for the invite! 

March 2022 - Our NSF CAREER proposal has been recommended for funding! Starting in June, we will be plying our particle levitation tools to explore the physical and chemical properties of light absorbing aerosol, building on our recent work published in ES&T (see update below!). We will also be working with physicians to run workshops in local high schools to teach the science and health effects of aerosol. 

March 2022  - Our hybrid symposium "Ion-molecule Interactions in Environmental Aerosol", co-organized with Doug Collins, Amanda Frossard, Ryan Davis and Megan Willis, at ACS Spring 2022 featured fantastic talks from in-person and remote attendees - thank you to all for a great day of presentation and posters. 

March 2022 - The whole lab attended ACS Spring 2022 Conference in San Diego. We had 3 podium presentations and 2 poster presentations. Great effort from all the Davies group students.

March 2022 - Chelsea's work in collaberation with Dr Thomas Preston is published in Environmental Science and Technology. See link in the Publications section.

February 2022 - Prof Davies is profiled in the "5 Questions" series of AAAR Particulars. Read his responses here: https://aaarpubs.org/articles/5-questions-with-james-f-davies/

February  2022 - Ravleen's work with Dr Gary Van Berkel developing an open-port sampling method for levitated particle analysis using mass spectrometry is accepted for publication in Analytical Chemistry! See link in the Publications section.

January 2022 - Another collaboration with Prof Ryan Davis at Trinity University and Prof Linsey Marr at Virginia Tech is published in PNAS! See link in the Publications section.

2021

November 2021 - Collaberator Prof Thomas Preston visits UC Riverside to give a talk and see the lab. 

September 2021 - Prof Davies visits Trinity University in San Antonio to give an in-person seminar and visit the lab of collaborator Prof Ryan Davis. 

August 2021 - Our work combining mass spectrometry with single particle levitation and spectroscopy has been published in Analytical Chemistry. See link in the Publications section. 

July 2021 - Our work measuring hygroscopic growth is published in Atmospheric Measurements Techniques. See link in the Publications section. 

July 2021 - Bilal Shokoor joins the lab as an undergraduate volunteer. Welcome Bilal! 

June 2021 - Prof Davies is appointed to the Early Career Editorial Board of the Journal of Aerosol Science.

June 2021 - Our collaborative NSF grant with Prof Ryan Davis of Trinity University, TX was recommended for funding! In September, we begin exploring the phase and morphology of mixed organic-inorganic particles in the atmosphere. 

May 2021 - Prof Davies gives a virtual seminar to the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in UCSD. 

April 2021 - Our work measuring hygroscopic growth is published in open-review as a preprint in Atmospheric Measurements Techniques. See link in the Publications section. 

March 2021 - Ravleen, Chelsea and Craig all present at the UC Chemical Symposium, and Ravleen won a Platform Talk Award from the Analytical division - congratulations to Ravleen!

February 2021 - Prof Davies gives a virtual seminar to the Aerosol Science Centre for Doctoral Training in the UK. 

February 2021 - Our work measuring the hygroscopic properties of lung fluid aerosol is published in Chemical Communications. See link in the Publications section!

2020

December 2020 - Jacks passes his oral qualifying exam and becomes the third member of the Davies Lab to advance to candidacy. Congratulations Jack! 

November 2020 - Our collaboration with Prof Davis and his students in Trinity University is published in Science Advances.

October 2020 - Prof Davies gives a virtual seminar to the School of Energy and Environment in the City University of Honk Kong.

October 2020 - The group attends the Virtual American Association for Aerosol Research Conference, with oral presentations from Chelsea, Jack and Prof Davies, and posters from Ravleen and Craig (who won a Poster Award - congratulations Craig!).

July 2020 - Ravleen passes her oral qualifying exam and becomes the second member of the Davies Lab to advance to candidacy. Congratulations Ravleen! 

May/June 2020 - We're back! Social distancing, masks, and sanitation protocols enable the Davies lab to return to campus to measure aerosol properties related to their role in disease transmission. 

March 2020 - University closure to limit the spread of SARS-CoV-2 shuts down the lab

February 2020 - Our paper "Paper spray mass spectrometry for the analysis of picoliter droplets" is accepted for publication in Analyst

February 2020 - Chelsea passes her oral qualifying exam and becomes the first member of the Davies Lab to advance to candidacy. Congratulations Chelsea! 

February 2020 - Our paper "Simultaneous Retrieval of the Size and Refractive Index of Suspended Droplets in a Linear Quadrupole Electrodynamic Balance" is accepted for publication in Journal of Physical Chemistry A

January 2020 - Chelsea Price attends the Pacific Conference on Spectroscopy and Dynamics and presents her work entitled "Exploring the Applications of Mie Resonance Spectroscopy to Probe Droplets in a Linear Quadrupole Electrodynamic Balance"

2019

November 2019 – The Davies lab expands into new premises, providing an expanded student office area and doubling our available lab space

October 2019  - ACS Petroleum Research Fund Grant approved - in September 2020 we will start exploring the high temperature liquid-vapor equilibrium of organic acids

October 2019 – Craig Sheldon (graduate) and Puron Rahman (undergraduate) join the group

August 2019 – Brandon returns to McGill University to continue his PhD with Prof Thomas Preston

August 2019 – Brandon presents his work entitled "Measuring and Modelling Timescales of Uptake and Loss in Viscous Aerosol Particles" at the ACS Conference in San Diego, CA

June 2019 – Prof Davies is awarded a Regents Faculty Fellowship and Omnibus Travel Grant from the UCR Senate in support of research and travel - thank you UCR!

June 2019 – Prof Davies is awarded the American Society for Mass Spectrometry Research Award - thank you ASMS!

May 2019 – Brandon Wallace joins the group on a 4 month transfer from McGill University

January 2019 – Ravleen Kaur and Jack Choczynski officially join the group as 1st year graduate students

December 2018 – First independent research paper published in Aerosol Science and Technology 

2018

October 2018 – Chelsea Price transfers into the group as a 2nd year graduate student

June 2018 – Installation of Q-Exactive Focus Mass Spectrometer, a key analytical tool in the analysis of chemical composition

March 2018 – First droplets levitated in the linear quadrupole electrodynamic balance

January 2018 – Prof Davies joins UC Riverside Chemistry faculty and the Davies Laboratory is born