News
Cora travelled to Telluride, Colorado for the workshop on New Insights into Gas-Phase Atmospheric Chemistry. She shared work from several members of the group. Cora co-organized the workshop with Lee Murray from University of Rochester.
New Insights into Gas-Phase Atmospheric Chemistry workshop participants in Telluride, July 2026.
The group is so proud of our three newest PhD graduates: Dr. Daniel Persaud, Dr. Lisa Azzarello, and Dr. Alessia Colussi! All three defended their doctoral dissertations in spring 2026 and convocated in June.
Newly-minted Drs. Persaud, Azzarello, and Colussi with Cora at convocation, June 2026
The AGU Atmospheric Sciences Ascent Award recognizes excellence in research and leadership in the atmospheric and climate sciences. Cora received the 2025 Ascent Award “for her fundamental contributions to the understanding of emerging contaminants and halogenated compounds in the atmosphere.” This honour belongs to the whole group, past and present!
The award was presented at the 2025 AGU Fall Meeting.
AGU Atmospheric Sciences Ascent Award presentation at 2025 AGU Fall Meeting. Mistake in the institution, but at least the city is right! December 2025
Nasrin and Cora travelled to Ottawa to present at the CSC meeting. Nasrin presented a poster describing her measurements of PFAS in aerosols and other atmospherically-relevant condensed phases. Her poster was recognized with a presentation award! Cora presented linkages between chemical design of fluorinated gases and the formation of perfluoroalkyl carboxylic acids.
Nasrin presents her award-winning poster at the CSC Ottawa meeting
Nasrin with Irina (VandenBoer group) in Ottawa at the CSC
Alessia, Lisa, and Cora travelled to Washington, DC in December to present at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting.
Lisa in front of US Capitol Building
Alessia presents her poster
The group recently published three papers that improve our understanding of the abundance, sources, and fate of atmospheric PFAS.
Daniel’s paper describing PFAS in an ice core from Mt. Oxford icefield in Nunavut, Canada was recently published in ESPI. This ice core represented 50 years of deposition and showed evidence of both direct and indirect sources of PFAS to this remote location.
Stephen’s new method that allows for the measurement of total fluorine in the gas phase was recently published in ES&T Letters. Application of the total gaseous fluorine method alongside speciated measurements shows there is a large quantity of “missing” fluorine in the atmosphere, similar to previous observations in the condensed phase.
A paper led by Cora in collaboration with John Liggio and Jeremy Wentzell of Environment and Climate Change Canada reported the first in situ ambient atmospheric measurements of PFCAs. The measurements were made using acetate-CIMS and showed atmospheric formation dominated the observed PFCAs, even in urban Toronto.
To read more about Daniel’s and Stephen’s papers, see this additional context.
Segments of an ice core lined up on the Mt Oxford icefield
Alessia and Daniel’s work describing new automated off-grid samplers for atmospheric deposition was recently published in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques.
Check out the video abstract to see more of what these samplers can do!
First generation precipitation samplers deployed in the remote boreal forest in Newfoundland and Labrador
Lisa, Mayre, Stephen, Andrea, Na-Yung, and Cora attended the CSC meeting in Winnipeg in early June. All team members gave great presentations. Special congratulations to Lisa who received a presentation award!
York U students with atmospheric chemistry legend, Prof. Barb Finlayson-Pitts, who was a plenary speaker at the CSC.
Lisa presenting her award-winning poster!
Several members of THE CIX team attended the AGES+ data meeting in beautiful Boulder, CO in May. Cora attended, along with Na-Yung, Lisa, Stephen (CJY group), Yash (VandenBoer group), Ayo (NBD group at UBC), and Matthew (Murphy group at UofT). Exciting to see all the AGES+ data coming together!
Shira’s work describing ultra-short chain PFCAs and other PFAS found in the aqueous leachate of (fluoro)polymers was recently published in ES&T Letters.
