The Department of Chemistry is pleased to announce that outstanding graduate student Ravleen Kaur has received the 2022 Donald T. Sawyer Award in Analytical Chemistry. Her research in James Davies’ lab focuses on understanding how aerosol particles change over time, with applications ranging from atmospheric chemistry to the transmission of SARS-CoV-2. She has been developing a new technique for levitating single aerosol particles and then probing them spectroscopically and with mass spectrometry. Professor Davies says, “The foundations established by Ravleen during her graduate studies at UCR will allow us to build a strong framework of aerosol chemistry analysis that will have significant impacts in the atmospheric and environmental sciences.”
Currently finishing her fourth year of graduate school, Ravleen has already co-authored six papers at UC Riverside, including three first-author ones and one in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. She has presented talks and posters at half a dozen conferences, and she has demonstrated a commitment to teaching by earning a University Teaching Certificate. Before coming to UCR, Ravleen earned her bachelor’s degree a Delhi Universtiy, followed by a masters degree in organic chemistry and a diploma in chemoinformatics at Jamia Hamdard University in India. After graduation, Ravleen plans to continue pursuing her career in analytical chemistry research and development.
The $1,500 Sawyer Award was endowed to recognize outstanding graduate students in analytical chemistry. Professor Sawyer was a founding member of the UC Riverside Chemistry Department, and he spent 30 years as a professor, department chair, and college dean here. He is known for his research of oxygen chemistry, bioinorganic chemistry, redox chemistry and dioxygen activation, transition metal coordination chemistry, electrochemistry, and gas chromatography. Professor Sawyer published more than 300 papers and co-authored ten books.