Letter from the Outgoing Conference Chair, Jason Surratt

Dear Colleagues,

Kanomax FMT

It was my sincerest honor to humbly serve you as your Conference Chair for the 43rd Annual Conference of the American Association for Aerosol Research (AAAR) in Buffalo, NY. Despite cuts to U.S. federal research funding and limited federal employee travel in 2025, our conference had a strong and enthusiastic turnout that was filled with opportunities to reconnect with friends, meet new colleagues, support junior scientists, and celebrate the incredible achievements of our dedicated scientific community. Congratulations to our newest Award Winners (i.e., Payton Beeler for the Sheldon K. Friedlander Award, Celia Faiola and Coty Jen for sharing the Kenneth T. Whitby Award, Jonathan Reid for David Sinclair Award, Chongai Kuang for the Benjamin Y. H. Liu Award, Justin Hanes for the Thomas T. Mercer Joint Prize, Kimberly Prather for the for the Susanne V. Hering Award, Ryan Ward for the Juan Fernandez de la Mora Prize, and W. Partick Arnott and coauthors for the AS&T Outstanding Publication Award) as well as our newest AAAR Fellows (i.e., Jesse Kroll and Pat Keady) that were announced during the conference! 

I know many of us look forward to the AAAR conference every year, and consider AAAR as our scientific home. Buffalo attracted many local and international aerosol scientists to our conference, and many folks told me that they found the restaurants nearby the conference venue were satisfying and the visit to Niagara Falls at the conclusion of the conference being spectacular.  The conference began on Monday morning with well-attended tutorial sessions, followed by the Committee for Representation and Equity Affairs (R&EA) Event that was a panel discussion on “Community Engaged Research & Empowerment of Disadvantaged Communities and Their Scholars.” Thank you to Cliff Davidson and Wendy Flores-Brito for moderating this much needed discussion and to our panelists (i.e., Jason Brady, Karla Rojas Garcia, Franklyn Telles, and Lupita Montoya). I strongly encourage AAAR to continue this event into the future, and that conference attendees consider adding this event to their conference schedule. Monday evening was capped off by our annual Geeks Who Drink Trivia for AAAR. It was so wonderful to see senior scientists intermingled with junior scientists during this trivia event.  There was lots of laughter and fun to be had and I hope we continue this event for many more years to come.

Tuesday morning began our technical sessions. Tuesday’s events started with our first special symposia on “Chemicals of Emerging Concern in Indoor and Outdoor Aerosol.” During lunch, new researchers gathered for the New PI Event, which provided a space for early-career PIs to network, generate new collaborations, and share lessons learned so far in their careers.  For others during lunch they could attend other events such as the Update on the Committee for Representation & Equity Affairs Activities in an Increasingly Challenging Climate in Academia and STEM Fields or the BC/UFP Research and Policy Implications Meeting.  Following the technical sessions in the afternoon, we had our first set of Working Group Meetings.  It was great to see more junior scientists present at these meetings this year (especially students), and I hope our junior scientists continue attending these meetings.  Working Group Meetings are a place to voice your input on how future AAAR Conferences should be organized.  These meetings are always welcome to all!  Tuesday concluded with the annual Welcome Reception, where attendees enjoyed beverages and appetizers, visited exhibitor booths, stopped by posters, and had a chance to mingle with colleagues. Students and postdoctoral scientists seeking employment participated in the Meet the Job Seekers Poster Session, which allowed an opportunity for these junior scientists to meet and network with potential employers in our field.  Tuesday evening helped to promote plenty of vibrant conversation and a feeling of excitement for the remaining days of the conference.

Keeping with tradition, Wednesday morning began with the AAAR 5k(ish) Fun Run/Walk, which took runners/walkers to the Erie Marina Observation Deck. Thanks to Christine McCool and Anita Avery for organizing this well attended event!  Our other Special Symposia on “Burning Questions of Aerosol Emissions, Chemistry and Impacts from Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fires,” “Reducing Aerosol Exposure with Control Technologies and Interventions” and “Advancing Aerosol Science through Data Analysis Tools” began on Wednesday afternoon.  Following the technical sessions in the afternoon, we had our last set of Working Group Meetings to help with next year’s conference planning in Pasadena, CA.  Following the Working Group Meetings, we held our Annual Business Meeting where detailed organizational and financial updates on AAAR were provided. We capped off Wednesday evening with our first annual AAAR Musical Bingo & Dinner Bash.  There was a lot of laughter and fun to be had during this event, and the food provided was quite tasty!  I hope that future AAAR conferences either continue this kind of event or some other event that brings our community together to hang out in an informal setting!  It was great to see all of the smiling faces and dancing that occurred!  Yes, I even danced but it was very bad dancing on my part!  

On Thursday we had our final Special Symposia on “Aerosol Processes and Properties in Changing Environments in the Anthropocene” begin. A take-away box lunch was provided during Thursday’s lunch break, allowing for conference attendees to either spend time meeting with colleagues, visit exhibitor booths or posters, participate in the Atmospheric Science and Chemistry mEasurement NeTwork (ASCENT) Network Meeting or attend the first-ever LGBTQIA and Ally Event.  As an openly gay man, it was exciting for me to see the large participation of conference attendees at the LGBTQIA and Ally Event. This new event demonstrated that we need to continue supporting this community (especially our younger scientists), and I sincerely thank the members of the Committee for Representation and Equity Affairs (R&EA) who also attended to hear our concerns. The Committee for Representation and Equity Affairs (R&EA) plans to include more representation from the LGBTQIA and Ally members (i.e., at the junior, mid-career, and senior levels) in their future discussions and planning.  Following the last of the Technical Sessions on Thursday, the Technical Program Committee Meeting occurred to start detailed planning for next year’s conference in Pasadena, CA. The reports collected during your Working Group Meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday helped our new Conference Chair Roya Bahreini and Working Group Chairs get hard at work with planning.  We are in excellent hands with Roya Bahreini as our next Conference Chair – she is very familiar with Pasadena due to being a student at Caltech and now Professor at UC-Riverside.  Thank you Roya and your new Working Group Chairs for getting us organized for next year’s conference!   

During Friday morning of the conference, we had our last of the technical platform sessions.  At the conclusion of these sessions, we then had our last plenary lecture by Richard Moore.  Despite not being able to attend in person, Richard Moore provided an excellent overview of his work on aviation emissions of aerosols and its impacts on contrails and ideas for sustainable measures in the future.  The videos he provided from their field measurements were truly amazing!  Following our last plenary lecture, Shannon Capps and Jessica Tryner handed out the awards from the Student Poster and Oral Platform Competition! Congratulations to all of the students who received these well-deserved recognitions! Joseph Woo then handed out the awards from the Fine Particle Arts Competition – thank you to all who participated in this competition!  Maria Zawadowicz then followed with the presentation of the Juan Fernadez de la Mora Prize.  Lastly, myself and Amy Sullivan provided our thanks to all who helped make AAAR in Buffalo a success, and we introduced Roya Bahreini as your next Conference Chair and Suresh Dhaniyala as your next AAAR President, respectively.  I wish Roya and Suresh all the best as they organize AAAR for next year’s conference even in Pasadena.  We are in GREAT hands under their leadership!  Thank you both for doing this!

Lastly, no single person can organize a conference of this size, and thus, I’m incredibly thankful to the hard work and dedication of the following individuals throughout the conference planning season:  

Working Group Chairs – Jenna Ditto, James Davies, Yue Zhang, Marina Nieto-Caballero, Ogochukwu Enekwizu, Christine McCool, Tran Nguyen, Sarah Petters, Pete DeCarlo, and Maria Zawadowicz

Working Group Vice Chairs – Ellie Browne, Georgios Kelesidis, Ben Nault, Eloise Parry-Nweye, Claire Fortenberry, Devabhaktuni Srikrish, Ying-Husan Lin, Chris Sorensen, Doug Collins and Fan Mei

Special Symposia Organizers – Christopher Tessum, Geoffrey Smith, Rajan Chakrabarty, Manabu Shiraiwa, Shantanu Jathar, Amara Holder, Joost de Gouw, Clara Eichler, Madeline Cooke, Katherine Ratliff, Christine McCool, and Jeffrey Siegel

Tutorial Instructors – Richard Flagan, Thomas Preston, Shantanu Jathar, Faye McNeill, Rachel O’Brien, Sarah Petters, Sri Devabhaktuni, Christine McCool, Glenn Morrison, Clara Eichler, Chris Sorensen, Jessica Tryner, Cesunica Ivey, Kamil Khanipov, Marina Nieto-Caballero, Rajan Chakrabarty, Payton Beeler, Francesco Carbone, Jun Wang, and the Participating Companies (i.e., Brechtel Manufacturing, Inc., DURAG Group, Particle Instruments LLC, SailBri Cooper, Inc., QuantAQ, Inc., CH Technologies, Cambustion, Aerosol Magee Scientific, Handix Scientific, Inc., Particle Plus, Ionicon, Aerospec SA, and OpenAeros LLC) for the Hands-On Instrumentation Tutorials

The Education Committee – Shannon Capps, Jessica Tryner, Ricardo Morales Betancourt, Joseph Woo, Kayane Dingilian, Sarah Petters, and Manishkumar (Manish) Shrivastava 

Early Career, Membership & Internet Committees – Yang Wang, Anita Avery, Maria Zawadowicz, Stavros Amanatidis, Raghu Betha, Xuan Zhang, Clara Eichler, Doug Collins, Coleen Rosales, and Andy May

The Newsletter Committee – Sarah Petters, Lindsay Yee, Qian Zhang, and Robert Nishida

The 2025 AAAR Social Media Ambassadors – Amelia Smith, Rileigh Robertson, Hunter Richards, Sining Niu, and Onyinye Ezeifeka

All Session Chairs, Student Assistants, Platform & Poster Judges

Thank you all for your efforts throughout the year last year – you all are the reason the conference in Buffalo was a true success!  

I want to give an extra special thanks to the following individuals/organizations:

Plenary Speakers – Chuji Wang, Chris Hogan, Ann Dillner, and Richard Moore. You all gave excellent and engaging plenary talks that motivated all of us to think about aerosol science topics ranging from optical trapping and its applications, the Knudsen number in aerosol transport phenomena, prior successes and future opportunities from US and global aerosol speciation monitoring networks, and aerosols from aviation and their role in contrails and what to consider for a sustainable future. 

Abstract Team – Donald Dabdub and Jeff Lindley; you guys are truly amazing, and thank you for making sure the conference program was put together so well! 

Development Committee – Suresh Dhaniyala and Cameron Martin; thank you for being on all the weekly calls!  Suresh thank you for leading our NSF proposal with me and Amy Sullivan for the travel funds we requested to support our young scientists and federal employees during this incredibly tough year!  AAAR is so lucky to have you as our newest President!  I know AAAR is in great hands under your leadership!   

Virtual, Inc. Staff – Erin Quinn, Emily Charles, Taylor Brown, Claudia Houde, Madison Hardy, Caroline Tychsen, Matt Bozek, and Maeve Carey. AAAR colleagues should be aware of how incredibly lucky we are to have such dedicated staff helping us carefully organize our conference each year.  These folks are highly professional, creative and hardworking to make sure the conference took place without any major issues!  Thank you, Virtual Team, for everything you did!

AAAR Executive Committee & Board of Directors – Amy Sullivan, Suresh Dhaniyala, Andy Ault, Cari Dutcher, Jesse Kroll, Shantanu Jathar, Rob Griffin, Celia Faiola, Christopher Cappa, Nina Vance, Chongai Kuang, Miriam Freedman, Arthur Chan, Marwa El-Sayed, Andrew Grieshop, and Christopher Hennigan.  You all should know how lucky we are to have Amy Sullivan still involved in AAAR.  I can’t thank Amy enough for her answers to all my questions throughout the year and for her unwavering support, kindness and generosity! Amy is the “AAAR encyclopedia” as she knows all the ins and outs of our organization! Amy, you were a wonderful AAAR President and I know I am very lucky you were during the time I was Conference Chair.

Exhibitors – Access Sensor Technologies, Aerodyne Research Inc., Aerosol Dynamics, Inc., Aerosol Magee Scientific, Aerospec SA, Aethlabs, Aerosol Science & Technology (AS&T), Brechtel Manufacturing Inc., Cambustion, CH Technologies, CloudSci, Droplet Measurement Technologies/Envea Group, DURAG Group, Handix Scientific Inc., Invisible-Light Labs, Ionicon, Kanomax FMT, Inc., OpenAeros LLC, Particle Instruments LLC, Particles Plus, Inc., QuantAQ, SailBri Cooper Inc., Sunset Laboratory Inc., TSI Incorporated, URG Corporation, Wavemetrics, and Yonsei University/ART Plus Co., Ltd.

Sponsors – U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), Anthropocene Institute, New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), Kanomax, Center for Aerosol Science and Technology (CAST) – University of Miami, Sunset Laboratory Inc., Aerosol Magee Scientific, Sensirion, AEESP, Environmental Science & Technology (ES&T), Aerosol Research and Technology Plus (ART), Yonsei University, DURAG Group, and TSI, Inc.

Organizational Members – Aerodyne Research, Aerosol Magee Scientific, Brechtel Manufacturing Inc., Cambustion, Kanomax, IONICON, DURAG Group, Particle Instruments LLC, Sunset Laboratory Inc., TSI, Inc., and URG.

I sincerely look forward to seeing you all later this year in Pasadena, CA. I know that Roya Bahreini and her team of Working Group Chairs and Special Symposia Organizers are hard at work planning the conference in Pasadena.  It should be an exciting venue for all of us to attend. Thank you all again for making our conference in Buffalo late last year a success despite the difficult year we had in the U.S.  Let us continue supporting one another and remaining steadfast in our pursuit of new scientific findings in aerosol science!  Our work continues to greatly impact public health, the environment, development of control technologies, industry, and medicine. 

Most humbly,
Jason D. Surratt
AAAR 2025 Conference Chair