Summer & Fall 2025 Updates
- Cesunica Ivey
- 10 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Welcome back to another AQMEL newsletter! As we wrap up the fall 2025 semester and 2025 calendar year, there are many milestones and accomplishments to celebrate.
AQMEL with Director Deldi Reyes of the California Air Resources Board at UC Berkeley
AQMEL Graduations
This fall, Dr. Cam Phelan receives her Ph.D. in environmental engineering! 🎉🥳 After joining the lab in the summer of 2022, Dr. Phelan has completed the requirements for her doctorate in record time! She served as AQMEL's interim co-leader with Duncan during Dr. Ivey's sabbatical in the summer of 2024 and has served as the group's representative for our collaborative NIEHS grant over the past calendar year. When it comes to computational expertise, Dr. Phelan has gone above and beyond to hone her skills while also supporting junior researchers in the lab.
Her recent publication on CMAQ model biases during wintertime persistent cold air pool events provides insightful conclusions on how to improve model parameterizations for aerosol formation during wintertime stagnation events in the western U.S. Find more exciting details in her dissertation, titled "Investigating Chemical and Meteorological Feedbacks of Simulated Secondary Air Pollution within 4-D Chemical Transport Models." We are all immensely proud of her and this pivotal milestone!
AQMEL also celebrates degree completions for Tanvi Sagaonkar, M.S. in environmental engineering and Lauren Kim, B.S. in Society and Environment! Tanvi has worked on community-based research over the spring and fall 2025 semesters as a capstone student. Her culminating report is titled, "Air Quality Monitoring for Climate Resilience and Environmental Justice in Marin City and Martinez." Her technical analyses provide support to ongoing work by the Marin City Climate Resilience and Healthy Martinez community organizations.
Lauren also supports community-led research in Marin City and she served as the public health lead for the spring 2025 URAP team and the subject matter lead for the fall 2025 URAP team. Fall 2025 contributions were related public health in Marin City public housing units and support of MCCR's EPA research project. Both have made outstanding contributions to both communities, and we wish them much success in their next chapters!
URAP students in Marin City deploying PurpleAir Monitors
AQMEL Publications
This fall we highlight a paper by Ph.D. candidate Yi Ji, titled "Assessing the Impact of Wildfire Smoke Transport Through Chemical Transport Modeling, Satellite Retrievals, and Ground-Based Observations of Ozone in Rural Nevada." In this work, Yi analyzes downwind impacts of wildfire smoke in rural Nevada, uncovering ozone enhancements at high elevation sites. Rural, low-population areas are often overlooked during smoke events, but this studies reiterates the importance of rural monitoring and chemical analysis of secondary pollution. This fall, Yi presented her results at the HAQAST Meeting in St. Louis, Missouri. In a study currently under review, Yi continues her investigation of smoke impacts in California for the 2025 Eaton and Palisades Fires. Preliminarily, we find that the quality of the indoor environment can compound existing environmental inequities during smoke events. Congratulations on this wonderful accomplishment!
Yi presents NVROI research at the November 2025 HAQAST Meeting in St. Louis, MO
Other Research Updates
In the summer of 2025, Duncan concluded an exciting internship at the U.S. EPA in Research Triangle Park under Dr. Benjamin Murphy. This work was supported by the lab's NSF CDS&E grant via and INTERN supplement. His project was titled, "Quantifying Structural Error in a Reduced Representation of Secondary Organic Aerosol Condensation Microphysics." His time at the EPA yielded fruitful collaborations with scientists at Pacific Northwest National Lab and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He presented his findings at the Fall 2025 meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
Duncan also concluded work on a collaborative CARB grant with UC Riverside partners on PM2.5 formation regimes in southern regions of California. He will present his second phase of the study titled, "Characterizing Drivers of Organic Aerosol Using Data-Driven Hourly Models in Three California Cities," at the Fall 2025 AGU meeting. Congratulations and job well done!
Duncan presents collaborative CARB research at AGU 2025 in New Orleans, LA
Sumu launched a community-driven field study in Martinez, CA in collaboration with Heathy Martinez. Her work leverages UPAS personal monitors to investigate speciated PM2.5 and CO2 concentrations for community members on the frontlines of the Martinez Refining Company complex. Work is ongoing to understand how indoor environments and personal exposures are impacted by proximity to the refinery. Sumu also led a team of URAP students to support engagement and analysis. We look forward to more community engagement in the spring!
Fall 2025 Martinez URAP Team (L to R): Sumu, Albert, Gabrielle, Irene, Chelsea, Tanvi
Team Updates
This fall we welcomed new Ph.D. student Akirah Epps! She is a graduate of the University of Virginia in environmental sciences, and she worked with Prof. Sally Pusede on her first publication, titled "Satellite Observations of Atmospheric Ammonia Inequalities Associated with Industrialized Swine Facilities in Eastern North Carolina." She will continue her work on agricultural air pollution inequities for western U.S. applications and is currently supported by the prestigious ARCS Fellowship.
We also welcomed Assistant Director of Operations, Alisha Mahajan! Alisha previously volunteered as a an undergraduate researcher in the spring of 2025, supporting Marin City efforts, and then joined the lab after graduating from UC Berkeley with a double major in environmental economics and legal studies (public policy minor). She supports lab operations, outreach, research collaborations, URAP mentorship, and the spin-up for the Collective for Inclusive Engineering.
We are thrilled to have them on board!
AQMEL at the Fall 2025 CEE Gala (L to R): Yi, Lauren, Sumu, Alisha, and Akirah
Outreach & Engagement Updates
We thank the Martinez and Marin City URAP teams for their phenomenal contributions to community-driven research. We look forward to seeing you next semester!
URAP Culmination lunch in December 2025 (L to R, clockwise from left-front): Tanvi, Alisha, Sofia, Lucy, Nathan, Albert, Sumu, Gabrielle, Lauren, Mallory, Dr. Ivey (not pictured: Chelsea, Irene, Leland)
This fall, Dr. Ivey and Alisha supported the launch of the Collective for Inclusive Engineering. Events this semester included a kickoff event and three seminars with distinguished speakers in the new Grimes Engineering Center. We are grateful for support from the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department and the UC Berkeley College of Engineering. We especially thank our inaugural speakers – Professor Asmeret Berhe, Vice Provost Lisa GarcÃa Bedolla, and Dr. Paul Jacobs – for their time and engagement with Ph.D. students and postdocs across the College. Stay tuned for more engagement in the spring of 2026.
AQMEL Honors
Finally, we congratulate Dr. Ivey on receiving her promotion to Associate Professor with tenure in the summer of 2025, a feat only made possible by the hard work of all AQMEL researchers past and present!
This concludes the summer and fall newsletter. We wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season! See you in 2026! 💫