The CRF is pleased to announce that researchers Craig Taatjes and David Osborn, along with collaborators at the University of Manchester and the University of Bristol, were awarded the 2012 David A. Shirley Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement at LBNL’s Advanced Light Source (ALS). The award, which is named after a former Professor of Chemistry at UC Berkeley and former Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, was given to Taatjes and Osborn for their work in making the first direct measurements of the reactions of Criegee intermediates, and showing that their impact on tropospheric chemistry and climate may be substantially greater than previously assumed. The research team conducted studies of gas phase Criegee intermediates using Sandia’s multiplexed photoionization mass spectrometer (MPIMS) at the ALS. Though the atmospheric importance of these Criegee intermediates has long been postulated, this was the first direct measurement of the rates and products of their reactions. This groundbreaking work was published in January 2012 in Science magazine.
This work was funded by the Office of Basic Energy Sciences (BES) within the Office of Science in the U.S. Department of Energy; the ALS is a scientific user facility supported by BES. More information about the award can be found at: http://www-als.lbl.gov/index.php/user-information/users-meeting/721-2012-als-user-meeting-awards.html