Professor Coty Jen joined the chemical engineering department at Carnegie Mellon University in the Fall of 2018 after completing her post-doc with Dr. Allen Goldstein at The University of California, Berkeley. While at Berkeley, she examined organic carbon and organic nitrogen species of biomass burning particles from a wide variety of woods and grasses at various stages of decomposition for specific fuel type tracers. She equally analyzed oxidized samples of biomass burning emissions to identify tracers linked to specific stages of atmospheric oxidation.

Dr. Jen's graduate work in the McMurry group at The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities focused on atmospheric nucleation, the formation of stable particles from gas-phase sulfuric acid and amines. She specialized in measuring and modeling the acid-base reactions of atmospheric nucleation which take place in minute concentrations (pptv). Particular focus was made on understanding and improving instruments used for measuring freshly formed particles in the 1 nm diameter size range. These instruments include atmospheric pressure chemical ionization mass spectrometer and particle sizer and counter.