Professor Nadine Borduas-Dedekind, The University of British Columbia, Canada
Dr. Borduas-Dedekind is an atmospheric organic chemist and an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of British-Columbia. She earned her PhD from the University of Toronto studying the chemical mechanisms of gas phase organo-nitrogen pollutants using mass spectrometry and chromatography. She also gained experience working with Environment and Climate Change Canada as well as with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, an air quality consulting company in South Africa. Nadine then pursued an NSERC PDF at ETH Zurich in Switzerland studying photochemistry and its impact on aerosol-cloud interactions. The NBD group started in November 2018 supported by an Ambizione grant funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, and moved to the University of British-Columbia in January 2021. Ongoing NBD group interests include reactive oxygen species produced during photochemical exposure of aerosols, organic matter acting as atmospheric ice nuclei, fate of indoor air chemicals and biogeochemistry of selenium.
Dr Ko-Ju Chuang, Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, Netherlands
Dr. Ko-Ju Chuang is an experimentalist in Astronomy. He obtained a Ph.D. in laboratory astrophysics from Leiden University, and his doctoral thesis addressed the interstellar origin of (complex) organic molecules in cold and dark molecular clouds. The research outcome has been recognized as an Honorable Mention in the ACS-Astrochemistry Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Prize in 2020. After that, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA)/ Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena (FSU-Jena), focusing on dust grain formation in space. Ko-Ju is now an assistant prof. working in Laboratory for Astrophysics (LfA) at Leiden Observatory. His main research interest is the physicochemical evolution of interstellar carbonaceous dust, ice, and their interface under non-energetic and energetic processing, which can facilitate the extraterrestrial origin of important prebiotic molecules on early planets like our Earth.
Dr Daniel Stone, The University of Leeds, United Kingdom
Dr Daniel Stone is an experimental physical chemist with a focus on atmospheric oxidation processes. He obtained his PhD in laboratory studies of peroxy radical reaction kinetics relevant to the atmosphere from University College London, for which he was awarded the Ramsay Medal in 2006. Following his PhD, he moved to The University of Manchester as a post-doctoral researcher in electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy, and then to the University of Leeds as a post-doctoral researcher, where he performed research in atmospheric modelling using the Master Chemical Mechanism, field observations of reactive species from ground-based and aircraft platforms, and laboratory studies of atmospheric and combustion systems. He was awarded a NERC Independent Research Fellowship in 2014 to investigate the chemistry of reactive species in the Earth’s atmosphere using time-resolved absorption techniques at the University of Leeds, where he is now an associate professor. His research uses a combination of laboratory experiments, field observations, and numerical modelling to understand the chemistry of reactive species involved in oxidation processes, and the impacts of reactive species on atmospheric composition, air quality, and climate.
