To conduct a comprehensive analysis of what makes up wildfire smoke plumes, Rajan Chakrabarty’s team spent 45 days in wildfire locations in the western United States where they sampled gaseous smoke and aerosol species and analyzed their chemical and optical properties. The research was part of the Fire Influence on Regional to Global Environments and Air Quality (FIREX-AQ) field campaign, led by NOAA and NASA.

Chakrabarty is the Harold D. Jolley Career Development Associate Professor in the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. His team made discoveries about the role of “dark brown carbon” — an abundant but previously unknown class of particles emitted as part of the wildfire smoke.

Chakrabarty is now investigating potentially harmful health effects from dark brown carbon particles when inhaled. He’s investigating a possible link to higher occurrences of Alzheimer’s disease in areas of frequent exposure.