Adam Bateman
Seeing through the clouds
Adam Bateman (pictured third from left) is the recipient of the 2010 Marvin Wesely Distinguished Graduate Research Environmental Fellowship Award. The honor to given to a distinguished graduate student who participates in collaborative global change research at a university and/or national laboratory. Pictured L to R: Milton J. Constantin, ORISE Program Manager; Rickey C. Petty, DOE Program Manager; Adam P. Bateman; and Jeffrey S. Gaffney, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Chief Mentoring Coordinator. Click image to enlarge.
Like many high school students, Adam Bateman was not interested in science. He avoided these courses until he arrived at community college where it was no longer avoidable. There, in Chemistry 101, he found his passion.
“I had an amazing teacher that made the topic fun,” Bateman recalled. “Since then, I have not spent a semester in college without taking chemistry, and it has now become my life.”
Bateman is currently completing the final year of his doctoral program with Dr. Sergey Nizkorodov at the University of California at Irvine. He is also a fellow in the Global Change Education Program, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Biological and Environmental Research and is administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education.
The research office conducts studies in a variety of fields, including climate change. And many factors contribute to climate change, but Bateman is focused on secondary organic aerosols. Every day, natural and volatile organic compounds are emitted by trees, traffic and industrial sources. In this process, a complex series of chemical reactions transforms these volatile organic compounds into secondary organic aerosols.
Some organic aerosols are naturally occurring forming, for example, the well-known, low-lying fog of the Great Smoky Mountains. Other secondary aerosols are man-made, such as the smog in Los Angeles. Despite years of research, there is much that remains unknown about these aerosols and their effects.
Bateman and others in his lab study how aerosols impact air quality and climate change. “Organic aerosol particles not only scatter light, but also absorb solar radiation.” Bateman said, “This aspect is not fully accounted for in global climate models.”
In his research and dissertation, Bateman aims to better understand how these secondary particles influence atmospheric chemistry and provide the groundwork for analysis of their photochemical properties. He feels it is crucial to understand the properties of these aerosols on a molecular level, so that their impact can be properly modeled and evaluated based on a fundamental understanding of atmospheric aerosol chemistry.
To accomplish this, he generates secondary organic aerosols in the lab using a large reaction chamber. Bateman then collects their particles and photolyzes the samples using an ultraviolet light to mimic solar radiation. Finally, he analyzes the chemical composition at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, under the direction of Drs. Alexander and Julia Laskin.
Bateman’s research is groundbreaking in many ways, recently earning him the 2010 Marvin Wesely Distinguished Graduate Research Environmental Fellowship Award.
“It is a great honor to be recognized for this award, as the young scientists being trained in the Global Change Education Program are quite talented,” said Bateman, who credits his success to the guidance and knowledge of his advisor, Dr. Nizkorodov and PNNL mentors Drs. Laskin.
The Global Change Education Program promotes the education and training of university students to support of the department’s global change research activities. For Bateman, this means that there are many opportunities to network with similarly-minded scientists. He enjoys collaborating with fellow graduate students working in the field of climate change and not just on the atmospheric side.
“I meet those who track carbon and nitrogen through all cycles—soil, animals, plants, trees and aquatic systems. This multidisciplinary approach is crucial to understand large-scale global systems and the effects of climate change,” he said.