Letter from the 2022 Conference Chair

By Amy Sullivan, Colorado State University

Dear Colleagues,

The first week of October we held our 40th Annual Conference. It was a busy week filled with outstanding posters, presentations, and events to highlight the latest aerosol and technology research. It was so wonderful to be able to catch up and network with new and former colleagues.

We started off the week early on Monday morning with 18 Tutorials featuring 23 Speakers and 12 aerosol instrumentation Companies (https://www.aaar.org/2022/tutorials/tutorials-information/). We followed

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that with an amazing Science Communication Program moderated by Cliff Davidson and featuring panelists Linsey Marr, Pete DeCarlo, and Jose Jimenez. We finished the day with 10 teams participating in some hilarious Geeks Who Drink Trivia for AAAR. Congratulation to team Aerosol Rocks for taking home the first-place prize!

Tuesday morning began the technical portion of the Conference with a sensational AEESP Plenary Lecture by John Volckens entitled “Low-cost Sensors for Exposure and Health Science: How It Started, How It’s Going”. Two of our Special Symposia also began: “Aerosol Physical Chemistry and Microphysics” and “Biomass combustion: outdoor/indoor transport and indoor air quality”. Our first Poster Session of the Conference was held, where the energy in the Exhibit Hall was electric. We wrapped up Day 2 with a great Welcome Reception that included the Meet the Job Seekers Posters and an amazing dessert tower that I know some of us are still dreaming about.

Wednesday consisted of 3 Platform Sessions that included the start of our “Aerosol Science of Infectious Diseases: What we’ve learned and still need to know about transmission, prevention, and the one health concept” Special Symposium. The day was kicked off by a Fun Run and then followed up by a tremendous Plenary Lecture by Sarah Henderson entitled “Nonlinear Trajectory: From Aerosol Science to Environmental Public Health”. Over lunch, we held the Early Career Event, which focused on elevating the voices of Early Career Scientists. We finished off this day with the Annual Business Meeting, where Akua Asa-Awuka, after a stellar year as President, passed off the gavel to Leah Williams.

Thursday featured the Friedlander Plenary Lecture by Jeffrey Siegel entitled “The Secret Lives of Filters” which made us all love filters as much as he does. Our fourth Special Symposium on “Aerosol sources and constituents of emerging importance and their impacts across spatial scales” commenced. We also had a third fantastic Poster Session. We were lucky enough to have 6 local Undergraduates from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University join us for these. To be able to delve further into the Aerosol Science of Infectious Diseases, we ended the day with 2 back-to-back panel discussions. Panel 1 entitled “Lesson Learned from the COVID-19 Pandemic about Infectious Disease Transmission and Mitigation” featured panelists C.Y.Wu, Josh Santarpia, Katherine Ratliff, and Jennie Cox and was moderated by Alex Huffman and Krystal Pollitt. Panel 2 entitled “Gaps Identified in the Aerosol Science of Infectious Disease Transmission and Prevention During the COVID-19 Pandemic” featured panelists Linsey Marr, William Lindsley, Jonathan Reid, and Donald Milton and was moderated by Shanna Ratnesar-Shumate and Justin Taylor.

Friday wrapped up the Conference with a special History of Aerosol Science Platform Session leading into Susanne Hering’s Plenary Lecture entitled “AAAR’s First 40 Years: Its Origins and Evolution”. This lecture gave us all the opportunity to understand how our great organization started and evolved over the years. Plus we saw some wonderful photos from the early days of AAAR. Thanks to Susanne, David Ensor, Tai Chan, Gil Sem, Peter Mueller, Peter McMurry, Rick Flagan, David Pui, Roger McClellan, Pat Keady, and Ben Liu for sharing their archives for this and the 40 years of AAAR Exhibit Booth.

In addition, we had many new noontime exciting and engaging events across the week including the:

• Mentoring Program Lunch
• Environmental Justice Book Club Discussion
• 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’s Human Studies Facility and Research Triangle Park Facility Tours

We also awarded 6 Annual AAAR Awards and announced 2 new Fellows. This year marked the first presentation of the Juan de la Mora Prize. Juan generously provided 2 nano DMAs this year with the outstanding recipients being Bryan Bzdek and Sarah Petters. Here is what they had to say about receiving this prize:

“I am thrilled to receive the Juan de la Mora Prize from AAAR. The high-resolution nano-DMA will enable my group to begin working with an entirely new size range of aerosol. We plan to use the instrument to develop a new approach to chemically characterize nanoparticles in the 3-10 nm size range.” – Bryan Bzdek

“I am really humbled by the kindness of this community. I want to thank Juan Fernandez de la Mora and the selection committee in the Instrumentation Working Group, which was chaired by Jimmy Radney. As you now know, I am interested in the role of Laplace pressure in nanoparticle viscosity and reactions (Petters, 2022, Geophys. Res. Lett.). The pressure in nucleation-mode particles is high – but we don’t know yet what that means for viscosity and reactions. The NanoDMA will allow me to work with sub-10-nanometer particles for online measurements of aerosol phase, but more importantly, it enables me to get the preliminary data and publications to make a compelling case for extramural funding to continue this line of inquiry. Thank you!” – Sarah Petters

The Conference also featured one of my favorites, the Fine Particle Arts Competition. This year marked our 5th Annual Competition. We received 9 photo and 4 video entries. In addition, along with our traditional Student Poster Competition, we had our first-ever Oral Platform Competition. There were 240 posters and presentations participating. Thanks to all the Judges as well as TSI and Yifang Zhu for providing the prizes. Congratulations to all the recipients (https://www.aaar.org/2022/award-winners/!)

A huge thank you to the Attendees, Presenters, Session Chairs, Student Assistants, and all that helped to organize the Conference. Each of you contributed to its success. Along with everyone mentioned above, I would also like to recognize the:

Working Groups Chairs
Chris Hennigan, Deborah Gross, Sarah Petters, ManishKumar Shrivastava, Shannon Capps, Arthur Chan, Maria King, Jana Kesavan, Yang Wang, Joel Corbin, Krystal Pollitt, Sunni Ivey, Susanne Hering, Xiaoyu Liu, Albert Presto, James Radney, Steven Rogak

Special Symposia Organizers
Cari Dutcher, Sarah Petters, Miriam Freedman, Havala O.T. Pye, Drew R. Gentner, Rachel O’Brien, Ben Nault, Nina Vance, Alex Huffman, Shanna Ratnesar-Shumate

Tutorial Chairs
Yue Zhang, Mike Schuit

Poster and Oral Platform Competition Organizers
Melissa Galloway, Andrew Metcalf

Travel Grant Coordinator
Shanna Ratnesar-Shumate

Undergraduate Visit Coordinator
Marwa El-Sayed

Fine Particle Art Competition Organizers
Naomi Zimmerman, Shantanu Jathar, Rachel O’Brien, Marit Meyer

Early Career Event
Joe Woo, Celia Faiola, Laura Fierce

Membership Committee
Hector Jorquera, Fred Brechtel, Cassie Gaston, Julie Stone

Internet Committee and Social Media Ambassadors
Anita Avery, Nina Vance, R. Subramanian, Colleen Marciel Rosales, Sukriti Kapur, Clara Eichler, Rachel Davey

Event Organizers
Jessica Tryner, Christine McCool, Andrea Ferro, Sunni Ivey, Lupita Montoya, Cliff Davidson, Louie Rivers, C.Y. Wu, Sheryl Ehrman, Herek Clack, Arantza Fernandez-Eiguren, Sean Garrick, Andrew Geller, Sally Ng, Ann Dillner, Roya Bahreini, Ted Russell, Christina Baghdikian, Chelsea Berg

Exhibitors
AAAR Membership Committee, AS&T Editorial Office, Access Sensor Technologies LLC, Aerodyne Research Inc., Aerosol Devices Inc & Handix Scientific, Aethlabs, Brechtel Manufacturing Inc., Cambustion, CH Technologies, Cooper Environmental/SCI, Droplet Measurement Technologies, DURAG, KANOMAX INC., Magee Scientific, Particle Instruments LLC, Particles Plus Inc., PermaPure LLC, Photonion GmbH, QuantAQ, Sunset Laboratories, TSI Incorporated, URG Corporation, U.S. EPA, 40 Years of AAAR

Abstract Team
Donald Dabdub, Jeff Lindley

Exhibitor Chair
Cameron Martin

Development Committee Chair and Mentoring Program Coordinator
Leah Williams

AAAR Executive Committee and Board of Directors
Akua Asa-Awuku, Leah Williams, Faye McNeill, Allison Aiken, Jim Smith, Cari Dutcher, Sergey Nizkorodov, Rob Griffin, Julie Stone, Qi Zhang, Jason Olfert, Sally Ng, Rich Moore, Andy Ault, Roya Bahreini, Alex Huffman

Virtual, Inc.
Sammie Blizzard, Jackie Wu, Jordan Schille, Tayla Giuffrida, Angelina Baynes, John Lessard

As this is my last official duty, from the bottom of my heart, I wanted to say it has truly been my honor to serve as Conference Chair and thank you all for sharing in it with me. I look forward to seeing you all in Portland!

Sincerely,
Amy P. Sullivan
2022 Conference Chair

P.S. Don’t forget that if you missed a Plenary Lecture and the Aerosol Science of Infectious Diseases Panel Discussions or you would like to watch them again, you can view their recordings on our YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL60Jp1GZcrU3VE_7I33iaryhteAO0HnwK).