Adam Ahern (S 2017)
(he/him)
About
Adam Ahern earned his doctoral degree in Chemistry from Carnegie Mellon University in 2017. His thesis work focused on improving methods of measuring smoke pollution and understanding how atmospheric aging affected wildfire emissions, which have significant climate and health implications.
Dr. Ahern is now a Research Scientist for the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He works closely with NOAA colleagues to measure the optical properties of aerosols in the field. These measurements are used to improve the ability of satellites to count particles 1/100th the size of a human hair from space.
First Author Publications during PhD
Ahern, A.T., Subramanian, R., Saliba, G., Lipsky, E.M., Donahue, N.M., & Sullivan, R.C. (2016). Effect of secondary organic aerosol coating thickness on the real-time detection and characterization of biomass-burning soot by two particle mass spectrometers. Atmos. Meas. Tech., 9, 6117–6137, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-9-6117-2016
Ahern, A.T., Goldberger, L., Jahl, L., Thornton, J., & Sullivan, R.C. (2017). Production of N2O5 and ClNO2 through nocturnal processing of biomass-burning aerosol. Environmental Science & Technology, 52(2), 550–559. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.7b04386
Ahern, A.T., Robinson, E.S., Tkacik, D.S., Saleh, R., Hatch, L.E., Barsanti, K.C., Stockwell, C.E., Yokelson, R.J., Presto, A.A., Robinson, A.L., Sullivan, R.C., & Donahue, N.M. (2019). Production of secondary organic aerosol during aging of biomass burning smoke from fresh fuels and its relationship to VOC precursors. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 124(6), 3583–3606. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018jd029068
Conference Presentations during PhD
Ahern, A.T., Goldberger, L., Jahl, L., Thornton, J., Sullivan, R.C. (2016). Multiphase chemistry of chlorine from biomass burning. American Chemical Society National Meeting, Philadelphia, PA. Platform presentation.
Ahern, A.T., Robinson, E.S., Tkacik, D.S., Saleh, R., Yokelson, R.J., Presto, A.A., Robinson, A.L., Donahue, N.M., & Sullivan R.C. (2015). Composition and evolution of biomass burning emissions. International Conference on Carbonaceous Particles in the Atmosphere, Berkeley, CA. Poster presentation.
Ahern, A.T., Robinson, E.S., Tkacik, D.S., Saleh, R., Yokelson, R.J., Presto, A.A., Robinson, A.L., Donahue, N.M., & Sullivan R.C. (2014). Composition and mixing timescale measurements of biomass-burning aerosol and secondary organic aerosol from α-pinene using two particle mass spectrometers. Association of American Aerosol Researchers, Portland, OR.