Stonington Professor of Engineering and Atmospheric Science Area Chair for Environmental Science and Engineering Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology; Affiliated Faculty Member of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Research in the Keutsch group is aimed at improving our understanding of photochemical oxidation processes of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that produce tropospheric ozone (O3) and are central to secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation. O3 and aerosol affect human health and climate, and uncertainties in the radiative effects of aerosol comprise the largest uncertainties in current estimates of anthropogenic forcing of climate. Our scientific approach builds on enabling new field observations of key VOC oxidation intermediates (OVOCs) via instrumentation and method development.
Fred Kavli Professor of Environmental Chemistry Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Research in the Sunderland Lab focuses on how biogeochemical processes affect the fate, transport and food web bioaccumulation of trace metals and organic chemicals. Her group develops and applies models at a variety of scales ranging from ecosystems and ocean basins (e.g., the Gulf of Maine, the North Pacific and Arctic Oceans) to global applications to characterize how changes in climate and emissions affect human and ecological health, and the potential impacts of regulatory activities. Her group also makes key measurements of chemical concentrations and reaction rates in environmental samples (natural waters, sediments, and aquatic biota) and humans (hair, blood) to parameterize and evaluate environmental models.
Ongoing research is elucidating the biogeochemical cycling of compounds with contrasting physical and chemical properties that can be used to obtain insights into the varying exposure pathways and environmental lifetimes for industrial chemicals. The innovation in this work is to quantitatively analyze the entire exposure pathway for these compounds to identify their properties in air and water (e.g., stability in the atmosphere, photodegradation in water, environmental partitioning behavior) that enhance chemical persistence and ultimate accumulation in biota.
Scot T. Martin is the Gordon McKay Professor of Environmental Chemistry at Harvard University, with appointments in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences & the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.
Gas-phase kinetics of free radicals; catalytic processes in the atmosphere controlling global change of ozone; high-altitude experiments from balloons and aircraft; development of laser systems for stratospheric and tropospheric studies; development of high-altitude, long-duration unmanned aircraft for studies of global change.
Severe convective storms are a significant source of weather-related losses and injury, worldwide. Yet very little is known about what sets their climatology in the current climate, and why climate models generally indicate increased severe storm activity as the climate warms. In this talk, I will focus on one of the main ingredients in severe convective storms: Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE). The global climatology of CAPE differs significantly from that of deep convection in general; for example, high CAPE values are quite rare over...
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences Harvard University Reginald A. Daly Postdoctoral Research Fellowship
The Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University invites applicants for the Reginald A. Daly Postdoctoral Research Fellowship.
The Department seeks candidates in the broad field of Earth and Planetary Sciences including but not limited to geology, geochemistry, geobiology, geodynamics, petrology,...
Former EPS PhD. candidate Professor Natalya Gomez of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at McGill University has been selected to receive the American Geophysical Union’s 2023 James B. Macelwane Medal, awarded annually to three to five early career scientists in recognition of their significant contributions to Earth and space science. AGU, the world's largest...
Lucas Vargas Zeppetello was recently awarded the James R. Holton Award by the American Geophysical Union (AGU). The James R. Holton Award is presented annually and recognizes outstanding scientific research and accomplishments from honorees within three years of receiving their Ph.D. This award serves to acknowledge exceptional contributions at an early stage of the awardee’s career. AGU, the world's largest Earth and space science association,...
Do stomata respond to variations in atmospheric humidity?
A growing literature argues that ecosystem-scale evapotranspiration is more sensitive to drying of the atmosphere because of stomatal regulation by plants than to reductions in surface soil moisture. Past studies analyzed observations, for which it is difficult to conclusively control for potential relations between plant physiology, measurable state variables like vapor pressure deficit (VPD) or soil moisture, and the ecosystem-scale water flux. Here, we analyze natural mechanism-denial experiments at non-vegetated...
