Student Chapter Updates

AAAR at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign by Tessa Clarizio

AAAR@UIUC has had a great spring! We have kept up with our weekly Friday writing sessions, where members have been able to give each other feedback on projects ranging from grant applications to preliminary exam proposals. We also have held a journal club, an ice skating social and have been busy planning our exhibit for Engineering Open House.

Manho Park led the journal club on January 31, 2023, which discussed the paper: “Papers and patents are becoming less disruptive over time” (Park et al., 2023 Nature 613: 138-144). We discussed the ideas in this paper, as well as ideas to combat this trend, such as reducing publish and perish culture, promoting interdisciplinary research and the need to read broadly (including outside your specific field).

We also had an ice skating social on March 3, which attendees all agreed was pretty cool!

Our chapter also had an exhibit for the University’s Engineering Open House on March 31 – April 1. This event attracted over 35,000 visitors and presented engineering and STEM related fields. AAAR@UIUC’s exhibit demonstrated “Smog in a Jar”, displayed a QuantAQ sensor and C-R box, and gave students the chance to build their very own “pollution catcher”.

AAAR at the University of California Riverside by James Davies

The UCR chapter hosted Q&A sessions with visiting seminar speakers, including Dr Andrew Ault (Associate Professor of Chemistry, University of Michigan) in February and Dr Amanda Frossard (Assistant Professor of Chemistry, University of Georgia) in March.

AAAR at the University of Miami by Shruti Choudhary

The student chapter organized a vibrant poster session along with the Center for Aerosol Science and Technology faculty. Students and postdocs had the opportunity to interact with leading researchers and discuss the results of their research in a two-day annual Miami workshop on Aerosol Science and Technology organized by Center for aerosol science and technology at the University of Miami (https://cast.miami.edu/) in January 2023. More about the workshop- https://news.miami.edu/coe/stories/2023/01/universitys-first-annual-aerosol-science-and-technology-cast-workshop-examines-important-challenges-to-south-florida.html

The University of Miami student chapter also conducted a science outreach program in schools in India on air pollution health effects and measures to reduce the exposure to air pollution. The students gained knowledge about wearable particulate matter sensors via hands on session, particulate matter, the good and the bad aerosols, sources of particulate matter in the environment, importance of discussing the topic, measures to reduce exposure to particulate matter on individual, local and global scale. Overall, 200 students attended the science outreach program.