March 1, 2010
For Immediate Release
Campbellsville University to Host Chemistry Seminar by WKU Professor Discussing ‘Pollutant Production’
By Ashley Zsedenyi, staff writer
CAMPBELLSVILLE, Ky. – Campbellsville University will host a chemistry seminar Friday, March 5, featuring Dr. Matthew Nee, assistant professor of chemistry at Western Kentucky University, discussing “Reactions at Earth’s wet surfaces: pollutant production at the interface of solid, liquid and gas.”
The seminar will be at 10 a.m. in the Banquet Hall of the Badgett Academic Support Center, located at 110 University Drive, Campbellsville.
The event is free and open to the public.
Nee said, “Assessing and addressing global climate change relies heavily on the availability of data from three sources: field measurements, model calculations, and laboratory experiments on the kinetics and dynamics of atmospheric and environmental components.
“Our research explores the contributions of various photo-initiated reactions in marine and snow-covered areas to atmospheric components such as nitrogen oxides (NOx) and ozone (O3).
“By monitoring the rates and branching ratios of the network of reactions started by UV photolysis, we can gain insight into how the components of these wet surfaces contribute to variations in final gas-phase product concentrations.
“Some preliminary results studying nitrate ion photolysis will be among the first to explore such reactions with infrared and Raman spectroscopy, hopefully enabling us to see the changes in concentration with unprecedented clarity,” he said.
Nee is a native of the Atlanta, Ga., area. He was an undergraduate at the University of Georgia where he worked in both a bio-inorganic lab and a gas-phase laser spectroscopy lab. He received his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, by designing and constructing a high-resolution anion spectrometer for studying short-lived chemical compounds in the gas phase.
Nee did post-doctoral work at the University of Michigan, developing new techniques in condensed-phase multidimensional infrared spectroscopy, a technique which allows biochemical reactions and processes to be studied with femtosecond resolution.
He began as an assistant professor at WKU in 2009, where he has begun work studying the kinetics and spectroscopy of atmospherically relevant aqueous solutions
Campbellsville University is a private, comprehensive institution located in South Central Kentucky. Founded in 1906, Campbellsville University is affiliated with the Kentucky Baptist Convention and has an enrollment of 3,006 students who represent 97 Kentucky counties, 30 states and 37 foreign nations. Listed in U.S.News & World Report’s 2010 “America’s Best Colleges,” CU is ranked 23rd in “Best Baccalaureate Colleges” in the South, tied for fifth in “most international students” and fourth in “up-and-coming” schools in baccalaureate colleges in the South. CU has been ranked 17 consecutive years with U.S.News & World Report. The university has also been named to America’s Best Christian Colleges® and to G.I. Jobs magazine as a Military Friendly School. Campbellsville University is located 82 miles southwest of Lexington, Ky., and 80 miles southeast of Louisville, Ky. Dr. Michael V. Carter is in his 11th year as president.
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