Conference Chair Message

Dear Colleagues,

This year will mark our 40th Annual Conference. The Conference and Technical Programs Committees have been hard at work to be able to celebrate this wonderful achievement for AAAR. I am excited to share with you the plans we have so far.

As of May 2nd, we received 555 abstracts. This includes 131 abstracts for our 4 Special Symposia of:

1. Biomass Combustion: outdoor/indoor transport and indoor air quality
2. Aerosol Physical Chemistry and Microphysics
3. Aerosol Science of Infectious Diseases: What we’ve learned and still need to know about transmission, prevention, and the one health concept
4. Aerosol sources and constituents of emerging importance and their impacts across spatial scales

These abstracts will be presented in 9 Platforms and 3 Poster Sessions during the Conference (https://aaarabstracts.com/2022/program.php). No worries if you missed this deadline. We are accepting abstracts to any topical area or Special Symposia for Late Breaking Posters as well as the Meet the Job Seekers Poster Session (https://www.aaar.org/2022/meet-the-job-seekers/) until July 22nd. You can submit your abstract at https://aaarabstracts.com/2022/.

Rounding out these 12 Technical Sessions will be 4 Plenary Lectures presented by John Volckens, Sarah Henderson, Jeff Siegel, and Susanne Hering. These Lectures will cover topics ranging from low-cost sensors, aerosol science and public health, indoor air filtration, to 40 years of AAAR. You can view the abstracts for each of the Lectures at https://aaarabstracts.com/2022/view_topic.php?Topic=Invited%20by%20Conference%20Chair. Don’t forget that this year, Friday’s Plenary will be formally ending our Conference and will begin at 11 am on October 7th.

At last October’s Working Group Meetings, we received so many excellent suggestions for Tutorials, that this year we will be offering 18 instead of 16 on Monday, October 3rd. This will include some new topics as well as some of our old favorites. There will also be two sections of the Hands-On Aerosol Instrumentation Design and Measurement Tutorial, where you will get an opportunity to have an up-close look at 12 different instruments presented by the Companies themselves. You can check out the full Tutorial Schedule and Speakers at https://www.aaar.org/2022/tutorials/tutorials-information/.

In addition, this year following the Tutorials we have planned a couple activities since we have not all had the chance to gather together in the past couple years. Cliff Davidson is organizing a Science Communications Program, which will feature a presentation by Linsey Marr as well as a panel discussion. Following this program, Geeks Who Drink will host a special trivia quiz for AAAR. The quiz will include 6 rounds of 8 questions with 2 rounds specifically themed for AAAR!

Along with these two activities on Monday evening, we have a number of other events planned for during the week. These include:

• Welcome Reception
• Environmental Justice Book Club Discussion
• AAAR 5k(ish) Fun Run/Walk
• Early Career Event
• How to Build a Community of Scholars in AAAR for Community-Engaged Research Panel Discussion
• Representation and Equity Affairs Program
• ASCENT Meeting and Discussion
• EPA Tour
• Aerosol Transmission of COVID Panel and Mitigations Panel
• Fine Particle Arts Competition

You can read more about these at https://www.aaar.org/2022/, which we will continue to update as we move towards the Conference.

Registration for the Conference officially opened in June. While registering you can sign-up to attend the Tutorials, Geeks Who Drink Trivia Quiz, and one of the EPA Tours. All non-Students can also volunteer to be a Judge for our Student Poster and Oral Platform Competitions. The deadline for Early Bird Registration is July 31st. To Register, please visit https://www.aaar.org/2022/registration/.

At the end of June, Sammie Blizzard and Jackie Wu from Virtual, Inc. visited the Raleigh Convention Center to check out the venue and talk with Convention Staff. We are continuing to plan for an in-person Conference in Raleigh the week of October 3rd. We plan to follow all CDC and public health guidelines. It is anticipated there will be masking and proof of vaccination (or negative PCR test results 48 h in advance) requirements in place. We will continue to provide frequent updates as we move forward. I want to assure you that if circumstances preclude an in-person conference in October and we need to switch to a virtual format, we will still proceed with our usual technical program including Plenaries, Special Symposia, Platform and Poster Presentations, Tutorials, etc.

Lastly, if you have any questions about your abstract reach out to support@AAARabstracts.com or for Registration and Membership details reach out to info@aaar.org. As always, please feel free to reach out to me at amy.sullivan@colostate.edu.

Sincerely,

Amy P. Sullivan
2022 Conference Chair