Group Members

Dr. Andreas (Andi) Zuend, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.
Andi's interests are broadly in the domain of atmospheric chemistry and physics, centered on multicomponent, multiphase aerosol processes and cloud formation. His group's research focuses on the development of models covering the range from detailed thermodynamic and kinetic aerosol box model treatments to reduced-complexity approaches and large-scale air quality applications.
Andi obtained his PhD degree in 2008 from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich), Switzerland, for his thesis conducted in the Atmospheric Chemistry group of Prof. Thomas Peter. His postdoctoral research was carried out at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in the group of Prof. John H. Seinfeld as well as at ETH Zurich.

Office: Burnside Hall, Room 809
eMail: andreas.zuend@mcgill.ca

Camilo Serrano Damha, PhD student in Prof. Zuend's group since 2019.
Camilo earned a BSc in Chemistry from McGill University where he was an intern in the Synthetic Organic Chemistry research group of Dr. Moitessier. He later obtained a BSc in Atmospheric Sciences from UQAM where he worked in the Climatology research group of Dr. Gachon. During his undergraduate studies, he developed a keen interest in atmospheric chemistry and physics. He joint our group in 2018, initially as a MSc student. His current research project involves improving the parameterization of physicochemical processes related to organic aerosols such as gas–particle partitioning and liquid–liquid phase separation in large-scale simulations of the atmosphere through incorporation of thermodynamic models into global and regional 3-D chemical transport models.

Office: Burnside Hall, Room 834
eMail: camilo.serranodamha@mail.mcgill.ca

Zixuan Shen, PhD student in Prof. Zuend's group since Fall 2021.
Zixuan graduated in 2021 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Atmospheric Science from Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, where she was selected as an outstanding valedictorian. Her previous research was focused on optical hygroscopic particle growth parameters and aerosol characteristics in different regions. Zixuan's undergraduate thesis focused on the hygroscopicity of atmospheric aerosols based on a chemical component parameterization. Her current research interests involve atmospheric chemistry and coupled kinetic–thermodynamic modeling of indoor and outdoor aerosol processes.

Office: Burnside Hall, Room 828
eMail: zixuan.shen@mail.mcgill.ca

Dan Hassan-Barthaux, PhD student in Prof. Zuend's group since 2023.
Dan earned his MSc degree in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at McGill (2021–2023). His MSc research focused on the interplay of particle composition, size, surface properties and variability in environmental conditions on aerosols and cloud droplets. Prior to his time at McGill, Dan obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Meteorology and Climate from the University of Reading in the UK. His first exposure to meteorology was working with a mobile radiosonde launch site, which inspired his further studies in this discipline. In his PhD research, Dan is interested in the formation and evolution of aerosols influenced by wildfire emissions and their impact on air quality and clouds.

Office: Burnside Hall, Room 828
eMail: dan.hassan-barthaux@mail.mcgill.ca

Qingcheng (Patrick) Lan, BSc student.
Patrick is an undergraduate student in the Atmospheric Science program at McGill. He joined Prof. Zuend's group to conduct a SURA summer research project on the topic of size-dependent aerosol hygroscopicity. He came from Beijing, China, and had his high school in the province of Prince Edward Island. He became interested in atmospheric science in Beijing because of the air pollution. Previously, Patrick also worked on the interaction between inclined downburst with boundary layer, and trend analysis for Montreal air pollution.

Office: Burnside Hall, Room 842
eMail: qingcheng.lan@mail.mcgill.ca

Hubert Ducas, BEng student.
Hubert is an undergraduate student in Mechanical Engineering at McGill. He joined Prof. Zuend's group in Fall 2024 to gain research exposure to atmospheric chemistry and physics, aerosol thermodynamics, and related programming experience.

Office: Burnside Hall, Room TBD
eMail: gregoire-hubert.ducas@mail.mcgill.ca

Interested in positions / projects available...?

Ryan Schmedding, (former) PhD student in Prof. Zuend's group; now a Weather Data Science Analyst at Castleton Commodities International.
Ryan's PhD research focused on modeling the size-dependent physical and chemical properties of fine and ultrafine aerosols and how they impact the activation of cloud condensation nuclei, the onset RH of liquid–liquid phase separation (or phase separation suppression) and the bulk–surface partitioning within individual aqueous particles.

Dalrin Ampritta Amaladhasan, (former) PhD student in Prof. Zuend's group; now at BASF.
Ampritta's research involved the development of software tools for the automated classification of organic aerosol compounds' functional groups using cheminformatics API and incorporating it in structure–property predictive models, such as the AIOMFAC model. Her research focused on improving simulations of gas–particle partitioning of aerosol components using state-of-the-art chemical mechanisms with group contribution methods for vapor pressure estimation and particle-phase thermodynamics in a box model.