Hometown: West Haven, Connecticut 

Undergraduate Institution: Roger Williams University

Past Degrees: B.S. Chemistry, Roger Williams University. M.A. Chemistry, Boston University  

Degree sought: PhD Chemistry, 2019

Activities: Skiing, Climbing, Brewing Beer, 3D Printing

One interesting fact about me: I have a second degree black belt in Tang Soo Do

Research: Sea spray aerosols (SSA) remain an uncertain driver of climate change and meteorological modeling in part because of questions about their composition. Field measurements of SSA content in the field have reported a greater content of soluble organic molecules than anticipated based solely on environmental abundance and aqueous phase solubility.  In recent years, researchers have proposed a ‘cooperative adsorption model’ to explain this organic enrichment.1 In this context, cooperative adsorption describes an affinity between soluble organics and in insoluble Langmuir film already adsorbed to the aqueous/vapor interface.  To test this model, we have used vibrational sum frequency generation (VSFG) together with surface tension measurements to test cooperative adsorption using model systems. 

  • Ref.  [1] S. M. Burrows, et al.Geophys Res. Lett. 2016143 8306.