Wildfire Smoke, Atmospheric Chemistry, and Air Quality
I am an atmospheric chemist and a Postdoctoral Scholar at Rutgers University, working with Prof. Xiaomeng Jin. My research follows wildfire smoke from the gases released by a fire to the mixture that reaches communities days later. I study what fires emit, how smoke chemistry evolves, and how those changes shape downwind air quality and pollutant exposure.
From fire to communities
- At the source: Do fire-emission inventories estimate enough carbon monoxide (CO) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) for the fires they detect?
- During the first hours: How quickly do smoke oxidation and ozone formation proceed?
- Days downwind: What remains when smoke reaches communities after days of travel and chemical change?
Across these stages, I also investigate which reactive VOCs and chemical pathways are missing from reduced atmospheric mechanisms.
I bring together aircraft, surface, and satellite observations with chemical-mechanism development and atmospheric modeling. My tools include GEOS-Chem, CMAQ, chemical box models, trajectory analysis, and data-driven methods.
I earned my Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Montana, where I worked with Prof. Lu Hu and Prof. Robert Yokelson on wildfire volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions and smoke photochemistry. I received my B.S. in Atmospheric Science (Honors) from Lanzhou University and was a visiting student working with Prof. Dan Jaffe at the University of Washington.
Open science. Whenever permissions allow, I share the data and code behind my research on the corresponding publication pages.