Achievement

Third-year IGERT trainee Michael Waring (Environmental Engineering) completed an IGERT internship at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) where he worked closely with internationally-recognized research chemists to study the effects of ozone reactions with terpene mixtures. Terpenes are emitted from many air fresheners and cleaning products. Ozone-terpene chemistry is important as it can lead to elevated levels of by-products, such as dicarbonyls, that are of concern with respect to their effects on occupational asthma. Michael expanded on his previous research, which was focused on ozone reactions with individual terpenes. Michael and his collaborators at NIOSH are the first to observe that mixtures can suppress, and sometimes magnify under the right conditions, the formation of indoor secondary organic aerosols in a non-linear fashion relative to individual terpene-ozone chemistry. Michael is working on a journal paper focused on his internship research.