Aerosol Measurements, Cloud-Aerosol-Precipitation Interactions
Email
Allison Aiken
User Executive Committee—Vice-Chair
Role
- Research Scientist, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Education
- PhD, Chemistry, University of Colorado, Boulder, 2008
- BS, Chemistry, Furman University, 2002
- BS, Biology, Furman University, 2002
Research Interests
My research focuses on understanding aerosol processes and cloud-aerosol-precipitation interactions by combining field measurements and laboratory experiments. My expertise is aerosol chemical composition and optical properties, which I use for model parameterization of ambient aerosol, radiative properties, and aerosol-cloud impacts. My passion is developing new measurement techniques, methods, and data analytics to understand the complex impacts of aerosols on climate.
Professional Experience
As an aerosol chemist, I believe ambient measurements and laboratory experiments are the key to understanding atmospheric processing. My first field campaign was in 2003 at Storm Peak Laboratory. Over the last 15 years I have participated in many field campaigns; in the last five years these have been ARM campaigns where I have been the aerosol observing system (AOS) Operations Manager at LANL. I co-lead the aerosol lab at LANL, and chair the Instrumentation Working Group for the American Association for Aerosol Research (AAAR).