A faculty member in the College of Arts and Sciences has received a grant of more than $575,000 from the National Science Foundation.

Assistant chemistry professor Tara Kahan will use the $579,000 Faculty Early Career Development grant to study the rate of reactions in ice and whether these reactions occur at different rates in clean ice (ice in polar regions) and dirty ice (ice in cities).

“So far, research has focused primarily on clean snow, but most people live in areas where snow is not so clean,” Kahan, who has a PhD from the University of Toronto, said in an email. “So it’s important to understand how ‘dirt’ affects this chemistry in order to understand how chemistry in snow and ice will affect human health.”

“Dirt,” in this case, refers to salt and organic compounds from decaying plant matter. Her research will focus on this and its effects on how pollutants react in snow and ice.

Kahan’s research will also focus specifically on how quickly pollutants, for example those emitted from car exhaust, react in dirty ice. She said she has shown that some pollutants react more quickly in snow and ice than in liquid water, suggesting that chemistry during the winter might be different than that in the summer.

“This is important because compounds formed from reactions in the environment are often more toxic than the original compounds, so faster reactions might mean a worse effect on human health,” Kahan said.

Through her research, Kahan said she hopes to attain a better understanding of pollutant health effects in the winter as compared to in the summer.

In addition, she said she hopes to study potentially better methods for removing pollutants from oil spills on ice. These methods will become increasingly important, as shipping — and the chance for oil spills — grows more prevalent in the Arctic, she said.

“I know that what I do is important and can help improve the state of the environment and human health,” Kahan said. “We don’t understand ice as a chemical reactor very well at all, so it’s easy to think of important unanswered questions.”

The research project is also comprised of an outreach program partnered with the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of Science and Technology (MOST), which is located in Syracuse.

In the program, seventh and eighth grade Syracuse City School District students will interact with graduate students studying environmental science and science communication, Kahan said.

At SU, one weekday per week for four weeks, each participant will discuss a broad topic such as “how to be a science journalist” and learn a technical skill like making blogs or videos, Kahan added. Then, students will end the program by creating a presentation.

These presentations will be uploaded to a website that will be created for this project. Meriel Stokoe, education director at MOST, will facilitate the collaboration between Kahn and MOST.

After the students finish their science reports, Stokoe said, they will show off their work at an open forum so the public can see what they’ve done.

Published on September 15, 2015 at 10:43 pm

Contact Connor: cmlayden@syr.edu