About

Jo Osborn is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Texas A&M University. She holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Michigan (2022) and an AB in Anthropology from Harvard University (2012). Her research areas include archaeology, environmental archaeology, historical ecology, economic specialization, maritime communities, fisher-foragers, zooarchaeology, and Bayesian modelling in archaeology. Osborn's current research projects focus on maritime subsistence practices and El Niño resilience on the Andean coast, seabird guano fertilization in the prehispanic Andes, and zooarchaeological analysis for the PaleoAndes project. Her scholarly contributions include numerous publications that explore topics such as seabird influence on pre-Inca society in Peru, indigenous accounting and exchange in the Pisco Valley, and the representation and categorization of animals in rock art and zooarchaeological remains of the Colombian Amazon. Osborn's work employs Bayesian approaches to reassess archaeological chronologies and investigates marine shellfish exploitation as a means of reducing resource vulnerability in coastal Peru. She is actively involved in teaching courses related to prehistoric archaeology and zooarchaeology at Texas A&M University.

Research topics

• Physics
• Nuclear physics
• Engineering
• Nuclear engineering
• Materials science
• Computer Science
• Environmental science
• Atomic physics
• Chemistry
• Radiochemistry

Selected publications

• Predicting The Transmutation of Fuel Taggants

  OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) · 2024

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Environmental science
  • Nuclear engineering
  • Nuclear physics

• Characterization of plutonium for nuclear forensics using machine learning techniques

  Annals of Nuclear Energy · 2022 · 10 citations

  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science
  • Nuclear engineering
  DOI

• A Gamma-Compensated Helium-4 Ion Chamber for Spent Nuclear Fuel Monitoring.

  2021

  • Nuclear engineering
  • Nuclear physics
  • Materials science

  Abstract not provided.

  DOI

• Experimental Evidence of Dioxole Unimolecular Decay Pathway for Isoprene-Derived Criegee Intermediates

  The Journal of Physical Chemistry A · 2020 · 45 citations

  • Chemistry
  • Computational chemistry
  • Photochemistry

  Ozonolysis of isoprene, one of the most abundant volatile organic compounds emitted into the Earth’s atmosphere, generates two four-carbon unsaturated Criegee intermediates, methyl vinyl ketone oxide (MVK-oxide) and methacrolein oxide (MACR-oxide). The extended conjugation between the vinyl substituent and carbonyl oxide groups of these Criegee intermediates facilitates rapid electrocyclic ring closures that form five-membered cyclic peroxides, known as dioxoles. This study reports the first experimental evidence of this novel decay pathway, which is predicted to be the dominant atmospheric sink for specific conformational forms of MVK-oxide (anti) and MACR-oxide (syn) with the vinyl substituent adjacent to the terminal O atom. The resulting dioxoles are predicted to undergo rapid unimolecular decay to oxygenated hydrocarbon radical products, including acetyl, vinoxy, formyl, and 2-methylvinoxy radicals. In the presence of O2, these radicals rapidly react to form peroxy radicals (ROO), which quickly decay via carbon-centered radical intermediates (QOOH) to stable carbonyl products that were identified in this work. The carbonyl products were detected under thermal conditions (298 K, 10 Torr He) using multiplexed photoionization mass spectrometry (MPIMS). The main products (and associated relative abundances) originating from unimolecular decay of anti-MVK-oxide and subsequent reaction with O2 are formaldehyde (88 ± 5%), ketene (9 ± 1%), and glyoxal (3 ± 1%). Those identified from the unimolecular decay of syn-MACR-oxide and subsequent reaction with O2 are acetaldehyde (37 ± 7%), vinyl alcohol (9 ± 1%), methylketene (2 ± 1%), and acrolein (52 ± 5%). In addition to the stable carbonyl products, the secondary peroxy chemistry also generates OH or HO2 radical coproducts.

  DOI

• Direct kinetic measurements and theoretical predictions of an isoprene-derived Criegee intermediate

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2020 · 102 citations

  • Chemistry
  • Photochemistry
  • Organic chemistry

  and formic acid, respectively. The tropospheric implications of these reactions are evaluated using a global chemistry and transport model.

  DOI

Frequent coauthors

• Sunil S. Chirayath

  Texas A&M University

  7 shared

• Evans Kitcher

  6 shared

• C. M. Folden

  Texas A&M University

  4 shared

• Jonathan D. Burns

  University of Alabama at Birmingham

  4 shared

• Kevin J. Glennon

  Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

  3 shared

• Oskar Searfus

  Sandia National Laboratories California

  1 shared

• Elijah Lutz

  Sandia National Laboratories California

  1 shared

• Taylor Marie Coles

  Texas A&M University

  1 shared

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