Early-Career Research Experiences

Since 2017, we have volunteered in the Governor's School for Science and Technology Research Mentorship Program, which is a year-long program that pairs STEM high school students with faculty to provide authentic research experiences. We have mentored five high school seniors [Hanna Weiss (now at University of St. Andrew's), Leo Murphy (now at William & Mary), Lehman Montomery (now at Princeton University), Desislava Yordanova (now at Belmont Abbey College), and Rachel Smith (now at Virginia Tech)] in various projects with undergraduates participating in near-peer mentorship.

These mentorships have led to new, exciting research avenues in our group. Their primary projects have been to construct, test, and deploy atmospheric multisensor devices based on Arduino microcontroller technology. Shown below, this hand-held Arduino multisensor ("AIRduino") simultaneously measures atmospheric concentrations of ozone (O3), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), aerosol particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10), temperature and humidity to monitor regional chemical composition impacts on secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation. AIRduino is paired with an Android smartphone App interface via Bluetooth to transmit and display atmospheric measurements in real-time. The device also features time tracking when the measurements were obtained, and the results are recorded with on-board storage using a storage device (SD) card. These projects have introduced the ideas of project design, coding, electronics, and citizen science to students. It is exciting to see students empowered to make meaningful, crowdsourced contributions towards our understanding of atmospheric molecules and their influence on aerosol production. We have published this work in The Journal of Chemical Education with high school and undergraduate authors describing the AIRduino device, the App interface, and their regional SOA results. Our AIRduino work has also been featured in W&M News!

Furthermore, in collaboration with Dr. Margaret Pippin (Principal Scientist at NASA Langley Research Center), we have visited the the Chemistry and Physics Atmospheric Boundary Layer Experiment (CAPABLE) site to compare our SOA measurements obtained with AIRduino to their suite of instruments. CAPABLE serves as a ground-based observation center to track and observe atmospheric conditions and pollutants in the Tidewater region of Virginia. Shown in the figure below, students set up their AIRduino devices at CAPABLE and collected data to calibrate our measurements directly with CAPABLE's data in real-time. Furthermore, our research group constructed a more modular AIRduino design in order to collect vertical profiling measurements of SOA with a drone. We are partnering with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) to record sulfur and aerosol concentrations over the Chesapeake Bay.