Havala Olson Taylor Pye
Department of Chemical Engineering

I am a Ph.D. candidate in the John Seinfeld research group at Caltech. My current research focuses on the effect of climate change on aerosols. Aerosols are solid or liquid particles suspended in the atmosphere and consist of organic and inorganic materials. Aerosols themselves can affect climate by scattering incoming solar radiation back to space (global dimming) or absorbing radiation. Future changes in greenhouse gas levels (and aerosol concentrations) will influence global temperatures and precipitation patterns. Chemical transport models which use meteorological fields as input can be used to assess the effect of these climate changes on aerosol concentrations. I am also particularly interested in Chinese air quality.