Christopher Jones
Georgia Institute of Technology, GA·Earth & Environmental Science
Tiny particles floating in the air, called aerosols, affect the climate. They scatter and absorb sunlight and change how clouds form.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
Chemistry
Engineering
- Topics
atmospheric chemistry
aerosols
particulate matter
- Grants
- 1 known grant, last ended Sep 2026
What they work on
- Establish ASCENT, a network of 12 U.S. sites in rural, urban, and remote areas, each providing long-term, high time-resolution measurements of fine aerosol composition and properties.
- Equip each site with an Aerosol Chemical Speciation Monitor (ACSM), Xact trace-metal analyzer, Aethalometer for black and brown carbon, and Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer (SMPS) for particle size and number.
- Provide data to study how shifts in power generation, transportation, and land use change aerosols, and to improve chemical transport models and aerosol-climate estimates.
More about the research
They also make air quality worse and harm health. Yet the United States has lacked long-term, frequent measurements of what these particles are made of. Most data come from occasional filter samples analyzed long after collection. This project establishes the Atmospheric Science and Chemistry mEasurement NeTwork (ASCENT), a research infrastructure effort to fill that gap.
Why it matters
Long-term, real-time data on aerosol makeup could show how the shift to cleaner power and electric vehicles changes air pollution across the U.S. Regulators, health researchers, and climate modelers could use this data. It could help identify which particles harm health and reduce uncertainty in how aerosols affect climate. It also supports tribal air quality monitoring.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Rawad Saleh
University of Georgia, GA·Earth & Environmental Science·Early-career
Conduct three intensive measurement campaigns of simulated wildland and prescribed fires at the U.S. Forest Service Center for Forest Disturbance Science combustion facility, testing how fuel type, firing technique and moisture content alter emissions of light-absorbing particles.
Rodney Weber
Georgia Institute of Technology, GA·Earth & Environmental Science
Quantify how the switch to lower-sulfur fuel oil changes wintertime PM2.5 sulfate, hydroxymethanesulfonate and related sulfur species in Fairbanks, Alaska, using real-time monitoring instruments.
Timothy Bates
University of Washington, WA·Earth & Environmental Science
Extend the 15-year Utqiaġvik record of submicron inorganic aerosol components, and analyze and archive 12 years of filter samples to build a nearly 30-year record.
The school
Georgia Institute of Technology: 50 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 572 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.