Members

Top: Amirashkan Askari, Marcia Pedroza Brambila

Middle: Jenna Ditto, Manpreet Takhar

Bottom: Arthur Chan, Shunyao Wang

Principal Investigator

Dr. Arthur Chan (arthurwh.chan [~a~t~] utoronto  dot  ca) obtained his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Caltech and was a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley from 2010 to 2013. He is interested in experimental and field studies of organic aerosol, and developing analytical techniques for studying complex mixtures. See Arthur’s CV.

Arthur teaches Engineering Economics, Environmental Impacts and Pathways, and Aerosol Physics and Chemistry.

Postdoctoral and Visiting Scholars

Jenna Ditto (jenna.ditto [~a~t~] utoronto dot ca) obtained her Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from Yale University, where her research focused on non-targeted tandem mass spectrometry methods to investigate organic aerosol composition. She is currently studying emissions and indoor chemistry from cooking, with a combination of gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry techniques.

Graduate Students

Shunyao (Sunya) Wang (shunyao.wang [~a~t~] mail dot utoronto dot ca) is a PhD candidate from Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China. Sunya obtained her bachelor degrees in Resources and Environment Sciences from Zhejiang University, China. She is developing analytical methods (IMS) to organic aerosol characterization for both lab and ambient samples, and evaluating the health impacts of secondary organic aerosol.

Amirashkan Askari (a.askari [~a~t~] mail dot utoronto dot ca) is a PhD candidate and obtained both of his B.S. and M.S. in Chemical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran. He is currently working on indoor air quality implications of cannabis legalization in Canada. His work spans from modeling the fate and exposure of cannabis products indoor emissions to sampling indoor settings to analyze them for contaminants using state-of-the-art instrumentation such as Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry.

Michael Tawadrous (michael.tawadrous [~a~t~] mail dot utoronto dot ca) is an PhD candidate. He is studying nanoplastics atmospheric transport and characterization using cTOF-AMS and SMPS. He worked at the Royal Military College of Canada as a research assistant in screening chemical protective fabrics for resistance to aerosol penetration. He obtained his MASc in Chemical Engineering from Queen’s University, where his previous research focused on the bioremediation of petroleum hydrocarbons and the minimization of GHG emissions from oil sands tailings ponds.

Xing Wang (starxing.wang [~a~t~] mail dot utoronto dot ca) is a PhD candidate from China. She obtained her B.S. in Chemistry and Biochemistry from University of Toronto. She is currently studying emissions from heated cooking oils. Her research direction is to improve the model used to predict cooking emission into urban atmosphere.

Vera Zaherddine (vera.zaherddine [~a~t~] mail dot utoronto dot ca) is a PhD candidate from Lebanon. She obtained her bachelors degree in Chemistry from American University of Beirut along with a minor in Biology. She is currently working on polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon oxidation in urban atmospheres.

Alumni and current positions

Justin Dingle (Postdoc, 2018-2020): California Air Resources Board, USA

Yunchun Li (Visiting professor, 2019-2020): Sichuan Agricultural University, China

Mi Tian (Visiting postdoctoral scholar, 2016): Chongqing Institute of Green and Intelligent Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

Kevin Goodman Rendall (MASc, 2014-2016): Field service engineer, Bruker Corporation

Mohammad Asif Iqbal (MASc, 2014-2015): Graduate student, University of Technology Sydney, Australia

Jianhuai (Jackie) Ye (PhD, 2013-2017): Postdoctoral scholar, Harvard University

Gang (Ian) Chen (MASc, 2016-2018): PhD Student, ETH Zurich, Paul Scherrer Institute

Lukas Kohl (Postdoc, 2017-2018): Postdoctoral scholar, University of Helsinki

Meng (Carol) Meng (MASc, 2016-2018)

Farhana Islam (MASc, 2017-2019)

Rui Zeng (MASc, 2017-2019): Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Parks

Yue (Alan) Shi (MASc, 2018-2020)

Marcia Pedroza (MASc, 2019-2021): Senior Analyst, Sustainability Reporting, Canadian Tire

Manpreet Takhar (PhD, 2015-2021): Quantitative Analyst, Morningstar

Summer undergraduate students: Farhana Hoque (2013); Ruby Zhuang, Cullen Adam, Madhushan Perera (2014); Delin Mu, Anjelica Portelli, Catherine Gordon, Jamie Mark (2015); Ali Emam, Legeng Yu (2016); Morgan Cooze, Cynthia Jing (2017); Anthony Tuccitto, Alicia Hill-Turner (2018); Yinrui Xu, Jinmyung Jang, Loay Nasser Salim Al Rashdi (2019); Nadiha Khan (2020); Eleanor Vaz, Urvi Verkhedkar (2021)