Anastasia Chen

Quantifying and Comparing Air Pollution Near the Fairbanks International Airport and Downtown 

ÃÛÌÒÓ°Ïñ Senior
B.S. Chemistry

Anastasia Chen Award Photo
Courtesy of Anastasia Chen.

 

Anastasia is a 2024 Fall Student Project Award Recipient. 

Under the mentorship of Dr. Bill Simpson, Professor of Chemistry, Anastasia's project will measure particulate matter, carbon dioxide (CO2), and temperature and compare data to previous studies in order to better understand the impact of windflow on pollution in the context of temperature inversions and local topography.

 

Anastasia in the trailer tower transferring measurements to the local computer. Particulate matter, CO2, and temperature data has to be moved and organized after logging in order to be analyzed.
Anastasia in the trailer tower transferring measurements to the local computer. Particulate matter, CO2, and temperature data has to be moved and organized after logging in order to be analyzed. (Photo courtesy of Anastasia Chen.)

How is your project going so far this semester?

It has been an engaging experience. This project immersed me in hands-on learning from the start thanks to the wise counsel of my mentor, Dr. Bill Simpson. I have gained knowledge in areas such as setting up Purple Air monitors and working with the Linux command line. Some of the things I’m learning were completely new to me, such as usage of the command-line interface. Being able to immediately apply and practice what I’ve learned has been really rewarding. Additionally, I’m stoked how this project gives me the opportunity to tie in Python programming, an interest I discovered this summer. We have to process our data after logging it, so having the space to puzzle together scripts to automate the cleaning and plotting of the data has been satisfying because coincidentally, I’ve been meaning to explore that avenue. Furthermore, by exploring literature surrounding air pollution behavior in Arctic climates to gain insight into this project’s background, I’m more mindful whenever I go outside nowadays because I’ve increased my knowledge of how air pollution events originate. Overall, I’m thankful for this opportunity because it made me realize my interest in atmospheric science and programming, and also reminds me to stay curious.

How did you find out about URSA and what encouraged you to submit an application for funding?

I found out about URSA a couple years ago when I worked on another project during the summer of 2022. I was encouraged to submit an application for funding after discussion with my mentor. I was also encouraged to submit the proposal because I thought it would be a great opportunity to explore an avenue of chemistry I haven’t waded into before. Additionally, this project relates to previous knowledge I’ve gained during my internship with AirVitalize this summer which was made possible through Center ICE’s Students2Startups program. I thought this URSA project would be a great segue from the knowledge I’ve gained about air quality this summer, and this prediction has proven true.

Anastasia next to the trailer tower's entry which is parked next to the Fairbanks A Street air quality monitoring site. Measurements collected from the trailer will be calibrated against respective data from the monitoring site.
Anastasia next to the trailer tower's entry which is parked next to the Fairbanks A Street air quality monitoring site. Measurements collected from the trailer will be calibrated against respective data from the monitoring site. (Courtesy of Anastasia Chen)

 

How does your URSA project relate to your career or personal goals?

This project made me realize my interest in visualizing data to elucidate understandings of environmental phenomena. For my future career, I am interested in pursuing a data science avenue in the context of atmospheric science. Working with NASA or another governmental agency to conduct atmospheric measurement studies and analyzing resulting data piques my interest. This URSA project relates to my career goal because it is giving me opportunities to collect and analyze atmospheric measurements, and after visualization, meaningful insights about potential environmental processes leading to the data are illuminated and can be explored. This project also provides space to hone my scientific writing skills which will be useful if I do continue down the research path.

This project relates to my personal goals in that it provides opportunities to practice Python in making plots of collected data. Since the end of summer 2024, I’ve gotten into learning how to use Python to automate tasks and learning fundamentals of programming. This project incorporates programming to organize and visualize data which is awesome because I have the freedom to learn programming as I go along and directly apply my knowledge.

If you could share one piece of advice with students interested in pursuing URSA in the future, what would you say?

My advice would be to stay resilient when you run into hiccups during your research. For example, I am outside my comfort zone in putting together some of the programming scripts, and it does feel discouraging when programs don’t run as expected. However, I’ve found that these are great opportunities to just keep trying each day and not give up, because sometimes the solution is right around the corner or comes from unexpected places. Overall, I think it’s important to maintain a growth mindset and be nice to yourself when things don’t go as planned sometimes. Give your best effort every day, no matter what that looks like, and everything will be ok.