Trainee Update: Kira Zeider

Jan. 19, 2023

 

Kira Zeider is a third-year graduate student in the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering under the mentorship of Dr. Armin Sorooshian and Dr. Mónica Ramírez-Andreotta, has received fellowships and internships, and she has continues publishing and presenting her work.

In her first year, she was selected as one of the five inaugural University of Arizona Herbold Fellows for her interest in big data as well as application of machine learning techniques to the NASA Aerosol Cloud meTeorology Interactions oVer the western ATlantic Experiment (ACTIVATE) campaign.

For her second year, she was selected as one of two Harvill Fellows to continue her research.

During the summer of 2022, she interned with the Naval Research Enterprise Internship Program (NREIP) characterizing giant aerosol particles near the Philippines.

In her third year, she was selected as a Carson Scholar to enhance her science communication skills. Her work as an intern with Freeport-McMoRan has guided her research interests in improving dust mitigation techniques for various industries, such as mines and cement, rock and rock products, and aggregates companies.

She published a paper (Zeider et al., 2021) evaluating the efficacy of plant leaves as low-cost air quality monitors for local communities. The National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) wrote a research brief on the publication, and it was additionally selected as the NIEHS Extramural Paper of the Month in October 2021, as well as one of 35 NIEHS Papers of the Year.

Kira Zeider presented her community-science work at the 2022 Superfund Annual Conference in Raleigh NC (December 2022). Zeider’s poster was titled: “Foliar surfaces as aerosol pollution monitors: Methodological validation, enrichment, and factors influencing foliar retention”.

 

Congratulations Kira Zeider!!