About the PI

Tran B. Nguyen
Associate Professor of Environmental Chemistry
Department of Environmental Toxicology

Email: tbn[at]ucdavis.edu
Office: 4113 Meyer Hall
Wet Chemistry Lab: 4423 Meyer Hall
Chamber Lab: 4427 Meyer Hall
Phone: (530) 752 – 5987

 

2016 – 2023 :   Assistant Professor, UC Davis
2013 – 2015 :   NSF-AGS Postdoctoral Fellow – Caltech
2012 – 2013:    Stanback Postdoctoral Fellow – Caltech
2012:    Ph.D. Chemistry – UC Irvine
2007:   B.S. Chemistry – Univ. Southern California

Courses I teach:  ETX 102A Environmental Fates of Toxicants, ETX 111 Introduction to Mass Spectrometry

Research Interests: My research focuses on the kinetics and mechanisms of oxidation chemistry occurring in the atmospheric gaseous or condensed phase (aerosols, fog droplets, cloud droplets) that impact air pollution and aerosol-climate interactions. My group also studies the aerosol chemistry that occurs in indoor atmospheres and in electronic cigarette devices that impact inhalation exposure and toxicology. We take an interdisciplinary approach to answering research questions, combining analytical chemistry (advanced mass spectrometry, spectroscopy), synthetic organic chemistry, computational modeling (kinetic modeling, global modeling), and chemical engineering methods. My group performs experiments on suspended aerosol particles in a 10 cubic meter photochemical chamber with wide range of temperature controls and in-situ instrumentation, as well as bench-top level chemistry studies using smaller reaction chambers. I am the director of ICARUS – an NSF-supported database for chamber research data in the United States.

Background: I’m an atmospheric chemist and environmental mass spectrometrist with a background in laboratory and field research. I started my atmospheric science career by analyzing greenhouse gases for New Zealand’s national lab NIWA at the Baring Head site near Wellington. My thesis work on determining the detailed composition of organic aerosols was performed at UC Irvine in the group of Professor Sergey Nizkorodov (co-advised by Professor Alexander Laskin at PNNL, who is now at Purdue). My postdoctoral research focused on the chemical oxidation mechanism of isoprene and the biosphere-atmosphere exchange of trace gases. This work was performed at Caltech under the mentorship of Professor Paul Wennberg and Professor John Seinfeld.

Select recent honors:

2024: Chair of the Aerosol Health Effects working group – American Association for Aerosol Research
2022: Whitby Award – American Association for Aerosol Research
2021: NSF CAREER Award
2019: Chair of the Aerosol Chemistry working group – American Association for Aerosol Research
2015: Sheldon K. Friedlander Award – American Association for Aerosol Research
2013: Atmospheric Chemistry Colloquium for Emerging Senior Scientists – Brookhaven National Lab

Research interests:
Atmospheric oxidation, aqueous and heterogeneous chemistry, organic aerosol formation and aging, atmospheric photochemistry, air pollution mechanisms, aerosol health effects, toxicant formation in electronic cigarettes