News

We gladly announce that Fabian Mahrt has started to work as Postdoc in the Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry. He formally joined the Surface Chemistry group on 1 August 2020 but has started his work actually at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada.

On 2 June 2020 Ling successfully defended her PhD entitled “Radiocarbon analysis of dissolved organic carbon from ice cores" at the University of Bern. This was the first time that a student from our lab defended online and Ling delivered a great performance. Congratulations! The project was conducted in collaboration with the Laboratory for the Analysis of Radiocarbon with AMS (LARA) of the University of Bern, Nanjing University, and the University of Maine, amongst others, and funded jointly by the University of Bern and the Paul Scherrer Institute.

We warmly welcome Kevin Kilchhofer as a PhD student in the Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry. He joined the Surface Chemistry group on 1 June 2020.

Kevin Kilchhofer studied Atmospheric and Climate Sciences at the ETH Zurich, with a focus on atmospheric chemistry and physics. For his master thesis, he investigated the impact of cloud processing on the ice nucleation ability of aerosol particles.

At PSI, Kevin Kilchhofer will investigate the feedbacks between photochemically induced peroxy radical chemistry and the evolution of composition in viscous secondary organic aerosol proxies using a suite of flow tube and aerosol mass spectrometry techniques, accompanied by radially resolved modelling of physical and chemical processes.

We warmly welcome François Burgay as Postdoc in the Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry. He joined the Analytical Chemistry group on 1 November 2019.

François Burgay studied Environmental Chemistry at the University of Turin and got his PhD in science and management of climate change from the Ca’ Foscari University in Venice. In his Phd project he developed new analytical techniques for iron speciation in ice cores.

At PSI, François Burgay will determine the chemical composition and sources of organic aerosols in the pre-industrial and industrial atmosphere by analyzing molecular markers in ice cores from Europe and the Central Asian Altai, applying sensitive liquid chromatography coupled to electrospray ionization ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometry.

We warmly welcome Carla Huber as a PhD student in the Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry. She joined the Analytical Chemistry group on 1 October 2019.

Carla Huber studied Chemistry at the ETH Zurich, with a focus on organic chemistry. For her master thesis, she investigated solvent effects on the binding of lysine and arginine to proline rich cyclic receptors.

At PSI, Carla Huber will investigate the preservation, stability and potential contamination of molecular markers in snow and ice through analysis of snow pit and simultaneous long-term atmospheric aerosol samples from the same site using state-of-the-art high-resolution organic mass spectrometry.

We warmly welcome Tatjana Münster as a PhD student in the Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry. She joined the Analytical Chemistry group on 1 September 2019.

Tatjana Münster studied Earth Sciences with a focus on palaeoclimatology, sedimentology, palaeoenvironmental, dynamics, and isotope geochemistry. She received her BSc from the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz and her MSc from the Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg.

At PSI, Tatjana Münster will characterize the performance of a new ICP-TOF mass spectrometer for trace element analysis in ice cores, obtain a trace element record using this instrument from an Alpine ice core, and reconstruct the history of Saharan dust transports and heavy metal pollution from metallurgy over the last 2000 years.

We warmly welcome Yohei Uemura as Postdoc in the Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry. He joined the Surface Chemistry group on 1 July 2019.

Yohei Uemura got his master and PhD degree in chemistry at the University of Tokyo. He has then continued on an academic career path at different universities in Japan and last at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. His speciality is the application of fast and ultrafast X-ray absorption spectroscopy techniques to follow the chemical dynamics of reactions. At PSI, Yohei Uemura will study the photolysis of organo-iodide compounds and the fate of primary and secondary iodine products in aqueous solutions at the SwissFEL and the SuperXAS beamline.

Join me in welcoming Yanisha, our new PhD-student in Markus Ammann's group.

Yanisha got her master in chemistry at the university of Berne. During her master thesis, she worked on "Scanning tunneling microscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy study of a thioacetate-functionalized aromatic molecule on metal substrates”. At PSI, Yanisha Manoharan will be studying the kinetics of nitrate photochemistry in ice samples. Her thesis work is part of the SNF funded project entitled "Interfacial Chemistry of Ice: Photolysis and Acid-Base Equilibria in the QLL and Brine“.

We warmly welcome Thomas Singer as a PhD student in the Laboratory of Environmental Chemistry. He joined the Analytical Chemistry group on 1 March 2019.

Thomas Singer studied Environmental Sciences at ETH Zurich, with a focus on biogeochemistry processes and pollutant dynamics. For his master thesis he investigated controlling factors for leaf gas exchange.

At PSI, Thomas Singer will determine the composition and sources of the bulk organic matter in the pristine, pre-industrial atmospheres, and quantify the influence of the human activity thereon, by analysing well-dated glacier ice cores utilizing innovative techniques such radiocarbon analysis with accelerator mass spectrometry.