Wildfire Smoke, Atmospheric Chemistry, and Air Quality
I am a Postdoctoral Scholar at Rutgers University in Prof. Xiaomeng Jin’s group. I study how wildfire emissions, atmospheric chemistry, and transport shape air quality and public-health risks.
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 VOC emissions and smoke photochemistry. I received my B.S. in Atmospheric Science (Honors) from Lanzhou University and was a visiting student in Prof. Dan Jaffe’s group at the University of Washington.
Research questions
- Wildfire emissions: How accurately are the magnitude and chemical diversity of wildfire emissions represented in atmospheric models?
- Smoke evolution: How does smoke chemistry change from fresh plumes to aged downwind air masses?
- Chemical mechanisms: Which missing reactive-VOC pathways matter for smoke oxidation and secondary pollution?
- Exposure and health: Which pollutants reach communities after smoke ages, and how do they shape health risks?
Across these questions, I integrate aircraft, surface, and satellite observations with GEOS-Chem, CMAQ, chemical box models, trajectory analysis, and data-driven methods.