SAVI: CLOUD Virtual Institute and Chemical Physics of Atmospheric New-Particle Formation

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh PA

Investigators

Abstract

This project addresses the Science Across Virtual Institutes (SAVI) Program at NSF. SAVI is an innovative concept to foster interactions among scientists and educators around the globe based on the principle that excellence in the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) research and education exists in many parts of the world, and that scientific advances can be accelerated by scientists, engineers, and educators working together wherever they are. SAVI focuses on interactions between cohesive teams of researchers across national borders and takes advantage of existing U.S. and foreign investments in frontier research by leveraging complementary intellectual strengths and sharing unique research infrastructures. A 3-year Cloud Virtual Institute (CVI) has been developed to include a team at Carnegie Mellon University, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and Aerodyne, Inc. working in conjunction with the European Training Network (CLOUD-TRAIN) and the CLOUD research consortium based at CERN in Switzerland. The CVI will enable US based researchers to participate in CLOUD, focusing on new-particle formation in the atmosphere. CLOUD revolves around an extremely sophisticated experimental cloud chamber equipped with a large suite of state of the art instrumentation to measure nanoparticle size distributions and composition. This project supports the administrative aspects of the institute. Research funds, including support for students and postdoc participation in the research, are being requested through other research-specific proposals to NSF and other agencies. The project supports team membership in the CLOUD consortium, and travel by US researchers to CLOUD campaigns, project meetings, and data analysis workshops, as well as the participation of US students in European summer schools and the hosting of a summer school at CMU and/or at Caltech. Network tools will enable remote collaboration during planning, daily briefings during campaigns, data analysis, paper planning, and publication preparation. CLOUD is a research consortium with stable funding contributed by a dozen different national research agencies. CLOUD-TRAIN is a Marie Curie Initial Training Network (ITN) based at the Goethe-University of Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The CVI team includes all of the US members of CLOUD as well as several enhanced collaborations with European CLOUD member institutions (University of Stockholm, University of Helsinki, Paul Scherrer Institute, and the University of Frankfurt). The CVI also will closely collaborate with the Finish Centre of Excellence in Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Meteorology of Atmospheric Composition and Climate Change.