Position Title
Associate Professor
Research:
My research aims to understand (1) the fundamental chemistry affecting air quality and climate change in the atmosphere and (2) the formation and chemical transformations of inhalable aerosol particles in a variety of applications (indoor and outdoor air, electronic cigarettes (vapes), wildfire and woodsmoke, etc.). My group uses mass spectrometry, spectroscopy, and atmospheric chamber methods to understand the molecular-level chemical composition of complex mixtures (aerosol extracts and environmental samples), in order to inform on how the chemistry affects their macroscopic properties such as volatility, light absorption, and toxicity. I direct an atmospheric chamber facility at UC Davis, and the first and only open-access database for atmospheric chamber research in North America (https://icarus.ucdavis.edu).
Specialties/Focus:
- Aerosol chemistry and toxicology
- Aqueous environmental chemistry
- Mechanistic oxidation chemistry
- Environmental (smog) chamber studies
- Mass spectrometry analyses of complex mixtures
- In situ volatile and semivolatile compound analyses
- Electronic cigarettes (nicotine and cannabinoids)
- Biomass burning emissions
Education:
- Postdoc fellow in Environmental Science and Engineering, California Institute of Technology
- Ph.D. in Chemistry, University of California at Irvine
- B.S. in Chemistry, University of Southern California
Teaching:
- ETX 102 A – Environmental Fates of Toxicants
- ETX 111 – Introduction to Mass Spectrometry
Campus Membership: (e.g., graduate groups, centers)
- Agricultural and Environmental Chemistry Graduate Group
- Chemistry Graduate Group
- Atmospheric Science Graduate Group
- Air Quality Research Center
- Cannabis and Hemp Research Center
Recent Publications:
Tran B. Nguyen, Kelvin H. Bates, et al., “Overview of ICARUS – a curated, open access, online repository for atmospheric simulation chamber data, ” ACS Earth and Space Chemistry, 2023 [Article]
James D. Cope, Kelvin H. Bates, Lillian N. Tran, Karizza A. Abellar, Tran B. Nguyen, “Sulfur radical formation from the tropospheric irradiation of aqueous sulfate aerosols,” Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, 2022, 119, 36, e2202857119 [Article]
Yichen Li, Jayne Dai, Lillian Tran, Eliot Spindel, Kent E. Pinkerton, and Tran B. Nguyen, “Vaping Aerosols from Vitamin E Acetate and Tetrahydrocannabinol Oil, Chemistry and Composition,” Chemical Research in Toxicology, 2022, 35, 6, 1095–1109 [Article]
Lillian Tran, Karizza A. Abellar, James D. Cope, and Tran B. Nguyen “Second-order kinetic rate coefficients for the aqueous-phase sulfate radical (SO4) oxidation of water-soluble biogenic compounds,” J. Phys. Chem. A, 2022 [Article]
Kelvin H. Bates, Guy J.P. Burke, James D. Cope, Tran B. Nguyen, “Secondary organic aerosol and organic nitrogen yields from the nitrate radical (NO3) oxidation of alpha-pinene from various RO2 fates,” Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 2022 (2), 1467-1482 [Article]
Karizza A. Abellar, James D. Cope, Tran B. Nguyen, “Second-order kinetic rate coefficients for the aqueous-phase hydroxyl radical (OH) oxidation of isoprene-derived secondary organic aerosol compounds at 298 K,” Environmental Science & Technology 2021, 55, 20, 13728–13736 [Article]
Yichen Li, Amanda E. Burns, Lillian N. Tran, Karizza A. Abellar, Morgan Poindexter, Xiaohan Li, Amy K. Madl, Kent E. Pinkerton, Tran B. Nguyen, “Impact of e-Liquid Composition, Coil Temperature and Puff Topography on the Aerosol Chemistry of Electronic Cigarettes,” Chemical Research in Toxicology, 2021, 34, 6, 1640–1654 [Article]
Kelvin H. Bates, James D. Cope, Tran B. Nguyen, “Gas-phase oxidation rates and products of 1,2-dihydroxy isoprene,” Environmental Science & Technology, 2021 55, 20, 14294–14304 [Article]
James D. Cope, Karizza A. Abellar, Kelvin H. Bates, Xuan Fu, Tran B. Nguyen, “Aqueous Photochemistry of 2-Methyltetrol and Erythritol as Sources of Formic Acid and Acetic Acid in the Atmosphere,” ACS Earth and Space Chemistry, 2021, 5, 6, 1265–1277 [Article]