Professor Allen Goldstein
 Professor Allen Goldstein |
Fulbright Senior Scholar Award
Media Profile
”This project involves taking a hard look at what is not yet known about a significant problem in atmospheric chemistry. I will bring home knowledge of the biological environment of Australian flora, which we can then compare to American environments to identify and understand the sources, fate, and influences of plant volatiles in the Earth’s atmosphere.”
Professor Allen Goldstein is one of five Americans to be granted a Fulbright Senior Scholar Award in 2005. He will engage in collaborative research with the CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research division and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT).
Goldstein is a Professor of Biogeochemistry at the University of California in Berkeley and a Harvard graduate and has published over seventy scientific papers. Whilst in Australia, he will examine the interactions between atmospheric chemistry and terrestrial biogeochemistry. Specifically, Professor Goldstein will focus on how natural emissions of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) influence atmospheric chemistry and composition.
Professor Goldstein will take advantage of the long-term Baseline Air Pollution Station at Cape Grim, Tasmania, run jointly by the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO, to compare atmospheric VOC concentrations between the northern and southern hemispheres. Volatile Organic Compounds are emitted from everything from fossil fuels to cleaning fluids to plants and are a major contributing factor to ozone in air pollution. Ozone has been a difficult pollutant to control because it is not emitted into the air, but actually formed in the atmosphere through a photochemical process.
Presently, 95% of anthropogenic VOC emissions occur in the northern hemisphere, as this is where fossil fuels are predominantly consumed. Therefore, Professor Goldstein’s study will investigate and compare the influence and impact of VOC’s in the relatively pristine, southern hemisphere.
Professor Goldstein’s research will attempt to resolve and identify the different sources of VOC’s across both hemispheres along with exploring potential unknown chemical compounds related to ozone and VOC’s, and develop a deeper understanding of atmospheric chemistry related to air pollution, atmospheric, and climate processes.