Ryan C. Moffet

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
University of California - San Diego
Urey Hall Room 2126
La Jolla, CA 92093-0314
(858) 534-7430
Fax: (858) 534-7042

rmoffet “at” chem “dot” ucsd”dot”edu

 

Education

 

1996 - Diploma: Petaluma High School

2000 - Santa Rosa Junior College

2002 - B.S., Chemistry: San Francisco State University

2004 - M.S., Chemistry: University of California, San Diego

 

Publications

 

Ryan C. Moffet, Laura G. Shields, Jon Berntsen, Robert B. Devlin, and Kimberly A. Prather. Characterization of an Ambient Coarse Particle Concentrator Used for Human Exposure Studies: Aerosol Size Distributions, Chemical Composition, and Concentration Enrichment. Aerosol Science and Technology, 38: 1123-1137, 2004.

 

Ryan C. Moffet and Kimberly A. Prather. Extending ATOFMS Measurements to Include Refractive Index and Density. Analytical Chemistry, 77, 6535-6541, 2005.

 

Presentations

 

R. C. Moffet, L. G. Shields, J. H. Berntsen, R. B. Devlin, K. A. Prather: Characterization of a coarse particle concentrator used for human

Exposure studies using aerosol time-of-flight mass spectrometry. American Association for Aerosol Research Annual Conference, October 20-24, 2003, Anaheim, CA. (Poster)

 

R.C. Moffet; K.A. Prather: Simultaneous chemical and optical measurements on single aerosol particles using aerosol time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Gordon research conference on molecular energy transfer, January 8-16, 2005, Buellton, CA. (Poster)

 

R. C. Moffet, Ryan Moffet, Xueying Qin, Stephen Toner, Hiroshi Furutani, Manuel Dall’Osto and Kimberly Prather: Optical Measurements Using Single Particle Mass Spectrometry. ACS Western Regional Meeting, January 23, 2006 (Oral)

 

 

Instrumentation/Work/Research Experience

 

  1. Inductively Coupled Plasma Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ICPAES)
  2. Gas Chromatography/Flame Ionization Detector (GC/FID)
  3. Gas Chromatography/Ion Trap Mass Spectrometry + Chemical Ionization (GC/ITMS + CI)
  4. Direct Sampling Ion Trap Mass Spectrometry (DSITMS)
  5. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (NMR) both were 60 & 300 MHz Brukers
  6. High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)
  7. Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) using a Continuous-Wave (CW) Ar+ laser
  8. Fluorescence Quenching of NOx and Ru(bipy)3 using a pulsed nitrogen laser
  9. Cs cluster calculations using Gaussian 98
  10. Unix (everybody needs some unix in their life!!)
  11. Inorganic Standards Preparation & QC  CPI International
  12. Mathematica, Matlab, Fortran Programming
  13. Soxhlet extraction
  14. Flame Atomic Absorption (Flame AA)
  15. Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) Spectroscopy
  16. Aerosol Time of Flight Mass Spectrometry (ATOFMS)
  17. UV/Vis Spectroscopy
  18. Aerodynamic Particle Sizer (APS)
  19. Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer (SMPS)
  20. Nephelometer, Aethelometer
  21. Lasers (Ar+, Nd:YAG, DPSS etc.)

 

Teaching Experience

 

    1.   Physical Chemistry Lecture – Thermodynamics with Dr. Wheeler

  1. Instrumental Analysis Lab with Dr. Guazzotti
  2. Atmospheric Chemistry Lecture with Dr. Prather
  3. Analytical Chemistry Lab with Dr. Feng

 

Awards

 

      1. Department of Defense Undergraduate Science Scholarship (2000 - 2002)

      2. SFSU Summer Research Fellowship (Summer 2000)

      3. Eden Academic Excellence Award in Chemistry (2002)

4. Gordon Research Conference Travel Fellowship (2004)

 

The Life of Ryan

 

            I was born in San Francisco California weighing 10 lbs and having yellow skin. I spent almost my entire childhood and teenage years growing up in Petaluma, California (formerly the chicken capitol of the world). I was without direction when I graduated high school, so I decided to enroll in Santa Rosa Junior College (SRJC). I initially wanted to become a marine biologist, but after taking a little more chemistry I thought I wanted to become a biochemist. After taking many math and physics classes I wanted to become a chemical engineer. Upon taking a quantitative analysis class and securing a job making inorganic standards I decided that environmental/analytical chemistry was the ideal career path for me. I always had a love for nature (thanks mom) and science (thanks dad) so this choice seemed to be a good one.

Upon transferring from SRJC to San Francisco State University I immediately became involved undergraduate research with Dr. Pete Palmer analyzing PAHs collected at Moffett field. The PAHs were collected on filters and analyzed with GC/ITMS. I also started working with DIP/ITMS to try and develop a method for analyzing PAHs using this instrumentation as well. After a year of working for Dr. Palmer, I decided to take a summer research fellowship and work under the direction of Dr. Sergio Aragon analyzing casein micelles with dynamic light scattering. The Idea of this project was to accurately characterize the polydisperse micellar size distribution with the use of a global optimization algorithm coupled with multiple independent variable non linear least squares. The extra independent variable used in this experiment (correlation time being the other) was scattering angle. During my two-year stay at SFSU I also had a chance to take some graduate level classes in mass spectrometry and quantum mechanics.

Initially, my intention was to get a MS in chemistry, but I soon was made to realize (thanks Dr. Aragon) all of the opportunities available to students wanting to pursue a PhD in chemistry. I have been interested in Dr. Prather’s research ever since I was at SRJC, and as soon as I met her and her group, I was convinced that I was destined to be at UCSD doing research using ATOFMS. Now I am a third year and I am done with my classes. I want to focus on light scattering measurements in addition to working with the EPA analyzing instrumental data to answer questions health effects officials have about aerosols. I am also currently involved in a very exciting project developing an aircraft version of the ATOFMS.

 

Useful Links

 

http://www.craigslist.org/ has everything (housing, jobs, events, for sale) + its completely free.

http://www.atofms.ucsd.edu/ the group homepage. 

atol.ucsd.edu/~pflatau/scatlib/

http://webbook.nist.gov/chemistry/ has boatloads of good data.

http://rockclimbing.com/ great rocks and routes up them.