Letter from the 2023 Conference Chair

By Andy Grieshop, North Carolina State University

Dear Colleagues,

Thanks to all who attended the 41st AAAR Annual Conference during the mercifully (mostly) rain-free first week of October in Portland! The energy at the conference was amazing, and it was so stimulating and exciting to see folks connecting, sharing and being inspired by all of the great aerosol science and technology research activities! I heard from so many of you that it really felt like a return to near-normal after several difficult years of online and hybrid existence, and it was a great feeling!

The week got off to a great start with a jam-packed Monday including 18 Tutorials featuring 21 speakers and 12 instrumentation companies. This was followed by a fascinating and thought-provoking Science Communication panel discussion featuring journalist Andrew Revkin and AAAR stalwarts Cesunica Ivey and Chris Sorensen and a fun-filled and well-attended trivia session hosted by ‘Geeks Who Drink’!

The rest of the week included an amazing array of plenaries, traditional and special symposia technical sessions, and side events that offered something for all of the diverse research communities who make up AAAR. The plenaries were clearly highlights of the week, and we were lucky to have four speakers share their expertise and demonstrate the breadth and depth of expertise in our community, so I want to remind you that recordings of the plenaries are available online here!

Tuesday opened up with the fascinating Friedlander Lecture, “Particle-Resolved Modeling: A Bridge between Scales in Aerosol Science,” given by Nicole Riemer from the University of Illinois. Prof. Riemer’s talk featured excellent graphics and an emphasis on the multi-scale complexity of aerosols and how single-particle modeling, informed by diverse measurements, can yield important insights into understanding aerosols at all scales. It was a perfect way to start the technical session and fed directly into the Special Symposium “Aerosols Spanning Spatial Scales: Measurement Networks to Models and Satellites”. Both platform sessions and that afternoon’s poster sessions were full of energetic presentations and discussion. Tuesday also featured the new, and highly successful lunchtime ‘New PI Mixer’, which we hope will continue in the future. The day wrapped up with a Welcome Reception and the Meet the Job Seekers event, which was well attended, but unfortunately not well-enough stocked with food! This was unfortunate, your frustration and feedback were heard, and I hope you’ll be pleasantly surprised by offerings at future AAAR meetings and new venues!

Wednesday started with a dive into the history of air quality injustice in the US (and a call to action for researchers) with the AEESP Lecture, presented by Julian Marshall from the University of Washington. His talk, “Anti-racist air-quality modeling”, powerfully drove home three central points: (1) We don’t all breathe the same air. (2) The past is present. (3) The disparities won’t eliminate themselves, by highlighting the work of Prof. Marshall and others to uncover, analyze and help in solving these crucial issues. His thought-provoking talk provided a key introduction to the Special Symposium, “Identifying and addressing disparate health and social impacts of exposure to aerosols and other contaminants across continents, communities, and microenvironments,” which was one of the seven parallel tracks across 3 Platform Sessions of the day. Wednesday also featured the first of our (new this year) “Exhibitor and Instrument Application Showcase” sessions, which included some fascinating and educational talks getting into the nuts and bolts of various instruments and their applications. We hope to build on this success in future years.  Other Wednesday highlights were the traditional morning Fun Run and the Early Career Lunch, which were both well-attended and provided great networking opportunities, and the (also well-attended!) business meeting which featured the passing of the AAAR President’s gavel from Leah Williams to Faye McNeill (thanks for your service!).

Thursday kicked off with an inspiring plenary given remotely by Vanderlei Martins as the inaugural Lundgren-Marple Lecture. Prof. Martin’s talk, “Synergies Between Aerosol Measurements from Satellites and in-situ at the Nose Level” highlighted groundbreaking work in developing and deploying optical instruments on satellites and on the ground, in the quest to provide global observations of diverse aerosol properties through optical retrievals and link these to more comprehensive in situ measurements. Thursday featured two exciting, highly interdisciplinary Special Symposia, “Aerosol-ecosystem interactions,” and “Aerosol Science of Infectious Diseases: Lessons and open questions on models, transmission and mitigation” along with diverse platform sessions and our second poster session. Thursday we also welcomed special undergraduate visitors from Portland State University and Western Oregon University and a schedule stacked with a diverse range of side events, including lunchtime events from the Representation and Equity Affairs Committee and the PNNL’s Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, and an evening Panel Discussion on Aerosol Science of Infectious Diseases Science and Policy and meeting of the ASCENT Network.

Friday ended the conference on a strong note, with two more platform sessions and closing session featuring a fascinating and inspiring plenary by Lidia Morawska on “The role of aerosol science in understanding and minimizing the risk of airborne infection transmission”. Prof. Morawska took the nearly full plenary audience along on a journey through the distant and recent past of how aerosol science has contributed to our understanding of disease transmission. The talk focused on how this science has influenced (or sadly been ignored in) efforts to reduce transmission, and ended with an inspiring message about how our community can continue to contribute.

There was a fantastic showing in the Fine Particle Arts Competition, and Shanna Ratnesar-Shumate, next year’s chair, has an amazing array of art to draw from for next year’s conference! This year marked our 6th Annual Competition, and we received 20 photo and 3 video entries, check them out here! We also again had both Student Poster and Oral Platform Competitions. There were 277 posters and presentations participating. Thanks to all the Judges as well as Brechtel and Yifang Zhu for providing the prizes.

A highlight of each day’s plenary sessions was the awarding of the Friedlander, Hering, Sinclair, Whitby, Liu and Mercer Awards, the Aerosol Science and Technology Outstanding Publication and Reviewer Awards, the Juan de la Mora Prize, and the announcement of two new AAAR Fellows. Congratulations to all the recipients (https://www.aaar.org/2023/award-winners/!)

I want to personally extend a note of gratitude to the Attendees, Tutorial Speakers, Presenters, Session Chairs, Student Assistants, and all that helped to organize the Conference. Each of you contributed to the great energy and what felt like a very successful event. I would especially like to recognize the following key groups:

Working Groups Chairs
Deborah Gross, Celia Faiola, Manishkumar Shrivastava, Matt Berg, Arthur Chan, Andrew Metcalf, Jana Kesavan, Lupita Montoya, Joel Corbin, Francesco Carbone, Amy Sullivan, Kent Johnson, Cesunica (Sunni) Ivey, Manabu Shiraiwa, Susanne Hering, Andy May, Albert Presto, Anita Avery, Steven Rogak, Claudio Mazzoleni

Special Symposia Organizers
Jingqiu Mao, L.-W. Antony Chen, Pawan Gupta, Rohit Mathur, Celia Faiola, Andrew Ault, Hosein Foroutan, Gabriel Isaacman-VanWertz, Cassie Gaston, Joshua Santarpia, Justin Taylor, Krystal Pollitt, Albert Presto, Fred Brechtel, Amy Sullivan

Tutorial Chairs
Mike Schuit, Xuan Zhang

Poster and Oral Platform Competition Organizers
Andrew Metcalf, Melissa Galloway, Raghu Betha

Travel Grant Coordinator
Yue Zhang

Undergraduate Visit Coordinator
Marwa El-Sayed

Fine Particle Art Competition Organizers
Shantanu Jathar, Ricardo Morales Betancourt, Naomi Zimmerman

Early Career Event
Celia Faiola, Laura Fierce, Yang Wang

Membership Committee
Fred Brechtel, Cassie Gaston, Stavros Amanatidis21

Internet Committee and Social Media Ambassadors
R. Subramanian, Nina Vance, Colleen Marciel Rosales, Clara Eichler, Doug Collins, Una Trivanovic, Gabrielle West

Event Organizers
Cliff Davidson, Andy Revkin, Christine McCool, Anita Avery, Andrea Ferro, Cesunica Ivey, Lupita Montoya, Chris Sorensen, Nga Lee Ng, Zezhen (Jay) Cheng, Swarup China, Gregory Vandergrift, Nurun Nahar Lata, Kaisen Lin, Sarah Haines, Fred Brechtel, Justin Taylor, Josh Santarpia, Shanna Ratnesar-Shumate

Exhibitors
AAAR Membership Committee, AS&T Editorial Office, Access Sensor Technologies LLC, Aerodyne Research Inc., Aerosol Devices Inc, Aerosol Magee Scientific, Aethlabs, Atmospheric Radiation Measurement User Facility, Brechtel Manufacturing Inc., Cambustion, CH Technologies, Droplet Measurement Technologies, DURAG Group, EPA Office of Research and Development, Invisible-Light Labs GmbH, Ionicon, KANOMAX Holdings, INC., Palas GmbH, Particle Instruments LLC, Particles Plus Inc., Photonion GmbH, Sailbri Cooper Inc, Sunset Laboratories, TSI Incorporated, URG Corporation, Wavemetrics/Sutter Instrument Corp.

Abstract Team
Donald Dabdub, Jeff Lindley

Exhibitor Chair
Cameron Martin

Development Committee Chair
Faye McNeill

AAAR Executive Committee and Board of Directors
Leah Williams, Faye McNeill, Amy Sullivan, Jim Smith, Cari Dutcher, Rachel O’Brien, Akua Asa-Awuku, Jason Olfert, Sally Ng, Rich Moore, Andy Ault, Roya Bahreini, Alex Huffman, Manjula Canagaratna, Shantanu Jathar, Rodney Weber

Virtual, Inc.
Erika Burfield, Emily Charles, Caroline Tyschen, Jackie Wu, Tayla Guiffrida, Mika Sonis, Angelina Baynes, John Lessard

It was my honor and pleasure to serve as the Conference Chair and I thank you all for all you do to make this such an inspiring community and event. I look forward to seeing you in Albuquerque!

Sincerely,
Andy Grieshop
2023 Conference Chair

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