Da is a Ph.D. candidate in the Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Department working with Professor Mark Zondlo. His research focuses on the interaction between the nitrogen cycle and our society, especially for ammonia (NH3) and nitrous oxide (N2O). NH3 reacts with atmospheric nitric and sulfuric acids to form fine particulate air pollution known as PM2.5. These particles, just a fraction of the diameter of a human hair, can accumulate in the respiratory system and pose a serious health threat. The re-deposition of ammonia can also lead to soil acidification and eutrophication in water bodies. N2O is the third most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas and an important ozone-depleting substance. Difficulties in measuring NH3 and N2O emissions have been major obstacles in addressing NH3 and N2O related issues. Da has developed advanced optical sensors to monitor ecosystem-atmosphere exchanges of nitrogen species (NH3, N2O). These sensors have been mounted on mobile platform to measure NH3 and N2O emissions from agricultural sources in California and Colorado. He also deployed NH3 and N2O on tower sites in Colorado and Michigan to observe long-term features of NH3 and N2O fluxes. These observations can provide insights to the fields of emission estimation, emission control, and modeling of NH3 and N2O.
Da is also advised by Professor Denise Mauzerall from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs for his HMEI-STEP project on “Investigation of Monitoring Strategies of Atmospheric Ammonia for Ammonia Regulation in the United States.” The project aims to use existing observations and chemical models to provide information about effectiveness of NH3 emission control in improving air quality. Various levels of government and agencies can use the information to investigate potential benefits of regulating NH3 compared to regulating other species, such as NOx and SO2.
Before coming to Princeton, Da received his B.S. degree from the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at Peking University. He worked with Professor Jintai Lin and wrote his thesis on international trade and air pollution in China. The work was awarded the Cozzarelli Prize by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).
J. Lin, D. Pan, S. J. Davis, Q. Zhang, K. He, C. Wang, . . . D. Guan (2014). China’s international trade and air pollution in the United States. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(5), 1736-1741.
L. Tao, K. Sun, D. J. Miller, D. Pan, L. M. Golston and M. A. Zondlo (2015). Low-power mobile sensing platform with multiple open-path gas sensors. Applied Physics B, 119.1: 153-164.
D. J. Miller, K. Sun, L. Tao, D. Pan, M.A. Zondlo, J.B. Nowak, Z. Liu, G. Diskin, G. Sachse, A. Beyersdorf, and R. Ferrare (2015). Ammonia and methane dairy emission plumes in the San Joaquin Valley of California from individual feedlot to regional scales. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 120(18), pp.9718-9738.
J. Lin, D. Tong, S. Davis, R. Ni, X. Tan, D. Pan, H. Zhao, Z. Lu, Streets, D., Feng, T. and Zhang, Q., (2016). Global climate forcing of aerosols embodied in international trade. Nature Geoscience, 9(10), pp.790-794.
Sun, K., L. Tao, D.J. Miller, D. Pan, L.M. Golston, M.A. Zondlo, R.J. Griffin, H.W. Wallace, Y.J. Leong, M.M. Yang, Y. Zhang, D.L. Mauzerall, and T. Zhu, (2017), Vehicle emissions as an important urban ammonia source in the United States and China, Envi. Sci. Technol., 51(4): 2472-2481, doi:10.1021/acs.est.6b02805.
Clark, S.C., R. Ryals, D.J. Miller, C.A. Mullen, D. Pan, M.A. Zondlo, A.A. Boateng, and M.G. Hastings, 2017, Effluent Gas Flux Characterization during Pyrolysis of Chicken Manure, ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng., 5(9): 7568-7575, doi:10.1021/acssuschemeng.7b00815