Atmospheric chemist Professor Colette Heald joined MIT this spring as an Assistant Professor with a joint appointment in EAPS and Civil and Environmental Engineering.

She received her BS in Engineering Physcs from Queen's Universityin Kingston, Ontario (she is originally Canadian), in 2000, and a PhD (2005) in Earth and Planetary Science from Harvard where she worked with Professor Daniel J. Jacob on the use of satellite observations of atmospheric composition to quantify the sources and intercontinental export of pollutants. Most recently, after spending two years at the University California Berkeley as a NOAA Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellow where she focused on the sources and climate sensitivity of organic aerosols, Heald was an assistant professor in the Atmospheric Science Department at Colorado State.

Heald is interested in global atmospheric composition and chemistry, and interactions of these with the biosphere and climate system,including the study of both particles and gases in the troposphere, their sources, sinks, transformations, long range transport and environmental impacts. Using observations of the atmosphere at all scales: from ground stations, aircraft campaigns and satellite sensors with global models of chemistry and climate, she works at the intersection of modeling and observational analysis, with a strong emphasis on the integration of the two.

In this short video, Heald talks about the research questions she is working on and the techniques she uses.

You can read more about her work at Atmospheric Chemistry and Composition @ MIT