Sonia Maria Kreidenweis is an American Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Colorado State University. Her research considers aerosols and their impact on weather and the climate. She has previously served as President of the American Association for Aerosol Research and was a board member of the American Meteorological Society. She was elected a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 2019.

Early life and education

Kreidenweis grew up in New York City.^[1] As a child she was aware of air pollution, and became interested in investigating smog. She studied chemical engineering at Manhattan College in 1983.^[2] She was the first in her family to complete a Bachelor's degree.^[1] During her undergraduate degree she decided she would pursue studying, and chose to for academics who were becoming increasingly interested in air quality and environmental issues.^[1] She moved to California Institute of Technology for her graduate studies, earning a Master's degree in 1985 and a doctorate in 1989.^[1] She was supervised by John H. Seinfeld and worked on binary nucleation.

Research and career

After earning her PhD, Kreidenweis was appointed to San Jose State University as an Assistant Professor.^[3] She worked simultaneously as a consultant for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where she advised on chemical interactions in the atmosphere. Kreidenweis joined the faculty at Colorado State University in 1991.^[3] She spent 1999 as a visiting fellow at the Goddard Space Flight Center and remains affiliated with the Airborne Science Program.^[3][4] Her research considers the physical, chemical and optical properties of atmospheric particles.^[5] She has investigated the interactions of atmospheric aerosol on climate and visibility, as well as how aerosols interact with water vapour. She has developed several new scientific approaches to study aerosols and atmospheric particulates. She has created the methodologies to evaluate the consequences of pollution on precipitation, leading to a better understanding of the impact of aerosols on cloud formation and evolution.^[6][7] Her work has focussed on air pollution in US National Parks.

In 2015 Kreidenweis was awarded a $7.5 million United States Naval Research Laboratory grant to characterise aerosol particles in coastal regions.^[8] She has investigated cloud condensation nuclei and their representation in climate models.^[9] In this capacity, she is a member of the National Science Foundation program Western Wildfire Experiment for Cloud Chemistry, Aerosol Absorption and Nitrogen (WE-CAN).^[10] The program looks to understand the chemistry in western wildfire smoke, which has significant impacts on air quality, climate, weather and nutrient cycles.^[11] Kreidenweis leads the cloud condensation nuclei counter.^[12]

Kreidenweis is interested in the characteristics of atmospheric particles that are responsible for compromised visibility, and has extensively studied the impacts of wildfires. She has investigated how breathable particles grow and form new particles during wild fires, performing open burns of biomass at the Missoula Fire Sciences Lab.^[13]

She was made a University Distinguished Professor in 2014.^[6] In 2015 she served as Dean for Research at the Colorado State University College of Engineering.^[5][14] She serves on the Membership Committee of the American Meteorological Society.^[15]

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