Energetic October

Energetic October

October was a hectic month for our chapter, but it also means we had a really wonderful time this October. In lieu of our monthly journal club, we had a Fellowship Writing Advice Session with recent fellowship winners in the atmospheric sciences department. To win the next fellowship, we initiated our weekly writing session. Several of our members traveled to conferences to present their research and to get inspired from interaction with colleagues. We also had a Curtis Orchard excursion for apple picking and friendship building. Proudly, we did all those activities in the midst of the flux of mid-term exams. We survived and thrived!

At our Fellowship Writing Advice Session, we invited recent fellowship winners in the atmospheric sciences department. Leanne Blind-Doskocil (NSF GRFP) and Divyansh Chug (NASA FINESST) shared their experiences in writing a fellowship proposal and cultivating their research and career over coffee. We have learned a lot from them in a casual atmosphere. Our members will be more successful next time in their fellowship applications!

Fellowship Writing Advice session, at Espresso Royale in CIF

This fellowship session inspired us to have a weekly writing session. Fall is indeed a good season to write, right? Every Thursday at 3 PM, we gather at Beckman Institute to write proposals, lab protocols, manuscripts for publication, etc. Before our draft is sent to evil anonymous reviewers, we could get feedback from our friendly reviewers to tailor expressions.

Yicen Liu, Sudheer Salana, and Ganesh Subramanian attended the AAAR 40th Annual Conference at the beginning of October in Raleigh, NC. Yicen and Ganesh presented posters titled “Quantifying the Impacts of Aerosol Mixing State on Heterogeneous N2O5 Uptake Coefficients with the Particle-resolved Model PartMC-MOSAIC” and “Influence of Human Activities and Occupancy on Emissions of Indoor Particles and Their Potential Contribution to Fomites,” respectively. Sudheer gave a talk titled “Evaluation of PM2.5-induced Antioxidant Consumption and ROS Generation as a Proxy for the Aerosol Toxicity.”

Yicen presenting her poster at AAAR

Mashiat Hossain and Tessa Clarizio attended WE22 (October 20-22), the World’s Largest Conference for Women in Engineering and Technology in Houston, TX. Mashiat won the first place prize for her fabulous poster titled “Quantifying the impacts of marine aerosols on chemistry and climate over the Benguela upwelling zone using a global chemical transport model.”

Mashiat with her poster at We22

Tessa attended the UIUC Student Sustainability Symposium on October 25 and presented her poster titled “Estimation of PM Composition using Near-Real-Time Satellite AOD Measurements and Chemical Transport Modeling.”

Tessa with her poster at the Student Sustainability Symposium

Fall is definitely apple-picking season! Our chapter went to Curtis Orchard, the must-to-go place in Champaign. We picked crispy apples, walked through the pumpkin patch, and wandered off to the corn maze. We also met Prof. Hannah Horowitz and Prof. Cristi Proistosescu and enjoyed apple cider and donuts together. The weather was a little cold, but cold never bothered us anyway.

AAAR@UIUC at Curtis Orchard & Pumpkin Patch

Someone may say this October is hectic, but we’d rather say energetic. We expanded our map and we interacted with friends in different majors. In November and December, we will also have other great events to conclude 2022. Our coming events will make the winter warmer, so stay tuned!

By Manho Park