Members

Alex Lee (Principal Investigator), ceelkya@nus.edu.sg

Alex joined the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the National University of Singapore as an Assistant Professor in 2016. He obtained his B.Eng, M.Phil and Ph.D in Chemical Engineering from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Research with Prof. Chak Chan and Prof. Arthur Lau). He pursued his postdoctoral research with Prof. Jonathan Abbatt at the Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto from 2009 to 2016. He is currently the co-editor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics and the editorial member of Aerosol and Air Quality Research.

His current research focuses on studies of chemical processing and characterization of carbonaceous aerosol in the atmosphere and assessing their potential impacts to human health, regional air quality and global climate through both laboratory experiments and field studies. Alex has been a scientific member of many large-scale field campaigns, including ground-based measurements in urban, industrial and biogenic regions in North America and cruise and aircraft measurements in Canadian High Arctic. He also actively involves the development of real-time mass spectrometry techniques for single particle characterization.

Laura-Hélèna Rivellini (Resaerch Fellow)

I got my bachelor degree in chemistry and completed an international master degree in Atmospheric Environment from Lille 1 University (France). I obtained my PhD from Lille 1 University, which was a collaboration between the SAGE department of Douai Engineering School and the Laboratory of Atmospheric Optics. The objectives of my thesis were to study the chemical composition and optical properties of aerosols in West Africa (Senegal), as well as their sources. This study was based on field campaigns with an instrumentation set-up coupling on-line aerosol mass spectrometry (ACSM), for the chemical characterization, with in situ and remote sensing instruments to measure their optical properties.

Nethmi Kasthuriarachchi (PhD student), e0056318@u.nus.edu

Nethmi is a PhD student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, specializing in Environmental Engineering. She got her BSc in Civil Engineering from University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka, where undergraduate research project was based on the utilization of water treatment sludge in construction materials. Taking up a vastly different path, her PhD research is broadly focused atmospheric chemistry. Currently she is involved in investigating the Formation of Atmospheric Brown Carbon and its Global Impact by concentrating on the factors affecting secondary formation of Brown Carbon in the aqueous phase.

 Lu Lu (PhD student), e0130755@u.nus.edu

Lu Lu is a Ph.D. student in environmental engineering at the National University of Singapore. She obtained her BEng in environmental engineering at Tongji University, Shanghai, China. Her undergraduate graduation project was the design of a water treatment plant for a paper mill factory in Shanghai, and she was involved in the Student Innovation Training Programme (SITP) doing research on anaerobic digestion of high solid sludge with Prof. Dai Xiaohu. She got her MSc in environmental engineering at the National University of Singapore. She worked as a part-time student researcher at NUS Environmental Research Institute (NERI) for a year, doing researches on pharmaceutical and personal care product removal by powdered activated carbon-ultrafiltration. And she is currently a member of Environmental Engineering Society of Singapore (EESS). Her current research focuses on characterization of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and development of PAM reactor.

Mutian Ma (PhD student), m_m@u.nus.edu

Ng Jia Cheng (Final Year Project student)

Jia Cheng is a Final Year student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, majoring in Environmental Engineering. Having a flair and passion in Chemistry, he decided to apply his scientific knowledge for the betterment of environment in the aspect of Air Quality & Aerosol research. He is currently working on his Final Year Project for “Sources and characteristics of particulate pollutants that can heat up urban environments.” under the supervision of Dr Alex Lee and Ms Nethmi Kasthuriarachchi. Through analysing the chemical composition & concentration of light-absorbing aerosols such black & brown carbons as they play a part in climate change, he hopes to contribute in the field of Sustainability and Climate Change.

Sharlene Teo Yu Teng (Final Year Project student)

Sharlene is an final year undergraduate student in the Environmental Engineering (BEng) at NUS. She is currently under the supervision of Nethmi Kasthuriarachchi for her FYP project on the Sources And Characteristics Of Particulate Pollutants That Can Heat Up Urban Environment. This project involves studying the characteristics of Brown Carbon and its impact on the urban environment.

Vanessa Ng (Final Year Project student)

Vanessa is a FYP student in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, specializing in Environmental engineering. Her FYP project is focused on finding out the chemical composition in cooking fumes, for the benefit of the public health. The project focuses on characterization of reactive oxygen species (ROS) making use of PAM reactor.