Receives National Science Foundation Career Award

The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently awarded Dr. Sarah Brooks, an assistant professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A&M University, with a career award for her research proposal titled “Career: Chemical Processing and Cloud Nucleation Activity of Spot Aerosol.” The award grants Dr. Brooks 4,000 to be spread over five years.

“I am an aerosol scientist, which means I study particles,” Dr. Brooks said. “My study will be about soot, which is an urban creation. I am interested to see how these particles that we put into the clouds affect cloud nucleation.”

Through her research, Dr. Brooks hopes to answer some of the following questions, which were taken from her research proposal: “Do soot aerosols react with oxidizing agents, such as O3, OH radical, and NO2?  Is oxidation a significant sink for tropospheric soot aerosol?  What are the major gas phase products of the oxidation?”

A large portion of the research will be conducted through simulations of different urban soot samples which will be generated by Dr. Brooks and her research team.

“The research will be all laboratory based,” she said. “We are going to generate different types of soot, such as diesel soot, gasoline soot, etc. and see how the particles affect cloud nucleation. The experiments will involve the usage of different instruments to measure the effects of these particles in warm and cool clouds.”

Dr. Brooks said that the results of this study are significant because urban pollutants are becoming more present in the atmosphere, a phenomenon that could seriously affect the weather and atmosphere in the years to come. Additionally, the subject is one that is relatively understudied.

“Soot is interesting because globally there has been an increase in soot. There is a lot that we do not know about it. Human activity could be influencing our weather and precipitation patterns and could affect our future,” she said.

As this is an NSF Career Award, the research must involve a focus on education. Dr. Brooks explained how her research will involve students from different ages.

“The education part of my research will consist of working with high school students who will collect precipitation and characterize it physically and chemically. They are going to use a rain gauge and a surface tensiometer. Then, my undergraduate students will find the chemical characterization through ion chromatography,” she said.

Participating high school students will come from parts of Houston, College Station, Bryan and Navasota. A regional map will be compiled from their findings to determine how the initial cloud droplets are formed.

Dr. Brooks said she is excited and honored to receive this award, and looks forward to conducting her research.

“This is a really nice award to get. It is such a big help to get my program started and it will also help me get high school students interested in the subject,” Dr. Brooks said.

Students who are interested in Dr. Brooks’ research can get first hand information about it; there will be an atmospheric sciences course offered in the fall that will be related to this project.

“In relation to this research, there will be a new course offered to undergraduate students in the field of measuring atmospheric chemistry,” she said. “The funds will help the class get off the ground and will get the students excited about our research. It is also a way for them to get unique hands-on experience in a new area of atmospheric sciences.”

For more information on Dr. Brooks and her research, go to http://www.met.tamu.edu/personnel/faculty/BROOKSwebsite.htm .