Dr. Tuija Jokinen, Assistant Professor at The Cyprus Institute’s Climate and Atmosphere Research Center (CARE-C), has been selected for funding for a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) for an innovative project proposal exploring “The role of Base molecules in AErosol formation (BAE)”. 

 

The research to be carried out at The Cyprus Institute is led by Dr. Jokinen, an established PI with a demonstrated history in ground breaking nanoaerosol and aerosol precursor studies, and aims to advance our understanding of the atmospheric chemistry and molecular pathways that control the formation and growth of aerosol formation.

The project will focus on the role of base molecules in the formation of new particles and their fate in the atmosphere. This project will underpin the modelling of atmospheric aerosol processes, which are subject to major precursor emission changes in Europe and beyond. The project has a duration of five years and a total budget of 2.24 million euros.

 

The BAE project is of particular significance to global efforts to address the climate crisis, as aerosol formation and growth mechanisms need to be better understood to improve air quality and weather prediction models, and reduce uncertainty of radiative forcing in climate change projections.

 

Dr. Jokinen’s is the only ERC Starting Grant proposal to be selected for funding at a Cyprus-based Research Organization in 2022 and the sixth Starting Grant awarded to Cyprus since the beginning of the program in 2007.

 

The ERC, set up by the European Union in 2007, is the premier European funding organisation for excellent frontier research. With a funding budget of €636 million ERC Starting Grants help excellent younger scientists, who have 2 to 7 years’ experience after their PhDs, to launch their own projects, form their teams and pursue their most promising ideas. The laureates of this grant competition proposed to carry out their projects at universities and research centres in 26 countries across Europe, with the call attracting nearly 3,000 proposals.

 

More information about the 2022 ERC Starting Grant results here.

 

Tuija Jokinen is an Assistant Professor at CyI’s Climate and Atmosphere Research Center (CARE-C). She joined CyI in August 2021 from the University of Helsinki, Finland, where she also completed her Ph.D. in physics and M.Sc. in Chemistry. Following her dissertation in 2015, she was affiliated with the University of California at Irvine, USA, and has also been a visiting researcher at TROPOS, Leipzig, Germany. Before joining CyI she was the Head of Unit for two ACTRIS calibration centers and a group leader for the Polar and Arctic atmospheric research group (PANDA). 

 

She has a long history in working with chemical ionization - atmospheric pressure interface - time of flight mass spectrometers (CI-APi-TOF) and she specializes in field observations of aerosol precursor gases and sub 10 nm particle measurements. Her research aims at solving how aerosol particles are formed from condensing vapors in the atmosphere and how aerosols effect the climate and ecosystems around EMME-area.