Our research group studies the interactions between the biosphere and the atmosphere to understand how vegetation affects atmospheric chemistry and climate. The biosphere is a living and dynamic component of the Earth System, and is constantly responding to the world around it. Our research focuses on understanding how emission from the biosphere can affect atmospheric chemistry and air quality, as well as understanding how changes at the land surface can affect regional climate.
Fall 2024
- Congratulations to Yingxiao Zhang, who defended her Ph.D. on September 25! Yingxiao will be starting as a postdoctoral fellow in the Advanced Study Program at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
- Dr. Steiner presents at the NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research lab on our Great Lakes related research.
- Attended the NASA ECOSTRESS PI meeting to present E Schwartz’s recent results on diffuse radiation and evapotranspiration observations.
- Dr. Steiner presents a keynote talk at the 2024 Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) User Meeting, titled “Connecting the Dots on Primary Biological Aerosols: From EMSL Observations to Regional-scale Models” in Richland Washington.
- New paper published by former postdoc Dandan Wei titled “Vertical Variations in Biogenic Organic Nitrates at Two Temperate Forest Sites” in ES&T Air.
Summer 2024
- Congratulations to grad students E Schwartz and Maria Salazar for passing their Ph.D. qualifying exams!
- Daniel Huber’s third dissertation manuscript, titled “Soil moisture, soil NOx and regional air quality in the agricultural central United States” is published online in JGR-Atmospheres.
- Dr. Steiner serves as a discussion leader at the Gordon Research Conference on Biogenic Hydrocarbons and the Atmosphere in Barcelona, Spain.
- Manuscript from our EMSL collaboration on biological particles during the TRACER campaign is published, titled “Chemical Insights into the Molecular Composition of Organic Aerosols in the Urban Region of Houston, Texas” in ES&T Air.
- We hosted Ping Jing from Loyola University Chicago, who visited our group and talked about her air quality observational network and community outreach in Chicago.
- Welcome to Qiuyan Du, a new postdoctoral fellow in the group, who will be working on biological aerosol impacts during the Houston TRACER campaign.
Winter 2024
- Check out the coverage of our work on pollen in the atmosphere featured on NBC Nightly News on April 18!
- Graduate students E Schwartz and Maria Salazar, as well as undergraduate Kate Bartlett, present recent work at the Michigan Geophysical Union on April 5.
- Congrats to grad student Yingxiao Zhang on the publication of her second paper titled “Effects of pollen on hydrometeors and precipitation in a convective system” now online in JGR-Atmospheres. This paper is a result of our collaborative work with Texas A&M.
Fall 2023
- Steiner group presentations at the Fall 2023 AGU meeting (aka AGU23) include:
- Tuesday, December 12: A23I-2495: Investigating Chemical Markers of Primary Biological Aerosol Particles, former REU student Connor Seto
- Tuesday, December 12: A23I-2496: Intense Pollen Emission Events over the United States and their Impact on Regional Climate, PhD student Yingxiao Zhang
- Friday, December 15: A51E-04: Agricultural Soil NOx and its Contribution to Primary and Secondary Pollutant Formation, former PhD student Daniel Huber
- Congratulations to Dr. Daniel Huber, who defended his PhD this October! Best of luck in your new postdoc position at George Washington University!
- Our last semester of FACSS before a hiatus. Thanks to all that have participated in this wonderful series to make it successful!
- Dr. Steiner speaks at the Meteorology and Climate – Modeling for Air Quality and Climate in Davis, CA on the group’s modeling work on local versus advective aerosols.
- Former student Samar Minallah’s final PhD manuscript is published, titled Controls of Variability in the Laurentian Great Lakes Terrestrial Water Budget.
- Welcome to new graduate students, Anna Schellin and Jennifer Seth!
Summer 2023
- Dr. Steiner presents work on the group’s work on pollen modeling in the Civil and Environmental Engineering department at MIT.
- Welcome to REU student Connor Seto! Connor is a chemistry undergrad at Harvey Mudd College, and will be working on detecting biological signatures of pollen.
- Research by former undergraduate Lunia Oriol is finally published! Her work estimated the dry deposition of phosphorus from the atmosphere to the Great Lakes, and we combined this with prior wet deposition estimates as part of a former MCubed project. Check out the paper here, titled Atmospheric dry and wet deposition of total phosphorus to the Great Lakes.
Winter 2023
- FACSS (Frontiers in Atmospheric Chemistry Seminar Series) continues in Spring 2023. (You can call it spring all you want, but it’s winter in Michigan!)
- Congratulations to Daniel Huber, who was awarded an Outstanding Student Poster Award (OSPA) for his poster at the 2022 Fall AGU meeting!
- Daniel’s paper on this work was recently published in JGR-Atmospheres.
- Former postdoc Tamanna Subba (now at BNL) has a new paper out on our work modeling pollen emissions and pollen rupture in WRF-Chem.
- Graduate student Yingxiao Zhang presents her work on pollen and its impact on ice nucleation at the European Geophysical Union meeting in Vienna.
- Dr. Steiner presents the NCAR Distinguished Postdoctoral Career Guidance and Lecture hosted by the NCAR Advanced Study Postdoc group in Boulder.
- Dr. Steiner presents work on the group’s modeling of atmospheric processes in the Great Lakes region at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Atmospheric Sciences department.
For older events, please visit the News Archive.