Gabriel Isaacman-VanWertz
· Associate Professor and Anthony and Catherine Moraco Endowed Faculty FellowVirginia Tech · Civil and Environmental Engineering
Active 2007–2025
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About
Gabriel Isaacman-VanWertz is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech and is also the Anthony and Catherine Moraco Endowed Faculty Fellow. His research focuses on organic compounds in the air, specifically how they are emitted, how they transform, and their impacts on health and ecosystems. He is particularly interested in developing new methods to measure and analyze hazardous air pollutants. Isaacman-VanWertz spent the 2023-24 academic year living in Ecuador with his family as a Fulbright Scholar. He has been recognized as a Virginia Tech College of Engineering Dean’s Fellow and Faculty Fellow, and has received early career awards from the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy. His educational background includes a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, and a B.A. from Wesleyan University in Chemistry/Earth and Environmental Science. His professional experience includes postdoctoral research at MIT and faculty positions at Virginia Tech, where he has taught courses such as Introduction to Environmental Engineering and Atmospheric Chemistry.
Selected publications
Volatile chemical product emissions enhance ozone and modulate urban chemistry
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2021 · 360 citations
from fragranced VCPs and other anthropogenic sources, which is comparable to that of a summertime forest. Photochemical modeling of an extreme heat event, with ozone well in excess of US standards, illustrates the significant impact of VCPs on air quality. In the most populated regions of NYC, ozone was sensitive to anthropogenic VOCs (AVOCs), even in the presence of biogenic sources. Within this VOC-sensitive regime, AVOCs contributed upwards of ∼20 ppb to maximum 8-h average ozone. VCPs accoun…
Atmospheric chemistry and physics · 2021-04-30 · 99 citations
articleOpen access1st authorCorrespondingAbstract. Many methods are currently available for estimating physicochemical properties of atmospherically relevant compounds. Though a substantial body of literature has focused on the development and intercomparison of methods based on molecular structure, there has been an increasing focus on methods based only on molecular formula. However, prior work has not quantified the extent to which isomers of the same formula may differ in their properties or, relatedly, the extent to which lacking…
Organic Sulfur Products and Peroxy Radical Isomerization in the OH Oxidation of Dimethyl Sulfide
ACS Earth and Space Chemistry · 2021-07-20 · 67 citations
articleOpen accessThe atmospheric oxidation of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) represents a large natural source of sulfate particles and thus is a major contributor to the global radiative effect of aerosols; however, its underlying chemical mechanism remains poorly constrained. In particular, DMS oxidation generates a variety of intermediate organic sulfur species, whose fate and kinetics govern the ultimate amount and distribution of sulfate aerosol. There is thus a need to understand the production and chemistry of su…
Environmental Science & Technology · 2024-03-07 · 34 citations
articleOpen accessThis study introduces a novel surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS)-based lateral flow test (LFT) dipstick that integrates digital analysis for highly sensitive and rapid viral quantification. The SERS-LFT dipsticks, incorporating gold-silver core-shell nanoparticle probes, enable pixel-based digital analysis of large-area SERS scans. Such an approach enables ultralow-level detection of viruses that readily distinguishes positive signals from background noise at the pixel level. The develop…
New formation and fate of Isoprene SOA markers revealed by field data-constrained modeling
npj Climate and Atmospheric Science · 2023-06-17 · 13 citations
articleOpen accessAbstract Particulate 2-methyltetrols (2-MT) and 2-methylglyceric acid (2-MG) are typically used to indicate the abundance of isoprene-derived secondary organic aerosols (SOA). However, their formation and fate are not fully understood. In this study, we showed that particulate 2-MT and 2-MG collected at multiple monitoring sites under a wide range of atmospheric and emission conditions, with concentrations spanning six orders of magnitudes, are well reproduced with an expanded isoprene-SOA schem…
Awards & honors
- 2024 VT College of Engineering Dean’s Fellow
- 2023 American Association of Aerosol Research Whitby Award,…
- 2023 Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award (Ecuador)
- 2022 VT Engineering Dean’s Award of Excellence: Faculty Fell…
- 2021 Department of Energy Early Career Program Award recipie…
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