Desi's Project Page

Who:  I was excited to join ACCESS because of the opportunities it offered to see the steps taken by different STEM fields in solving our climate crisis. I grew up in Orem, Utah and love working in the outdoors, from hiking in national parks, to backpacking, to working at summer camps. When I’m not doing schoolwork, I am a dedicated student activist and artist.

My scientific/engineering interests:  I became interested in science because I loved learning about the natural processes that govern our world and the impact humans are having on our planet. For me, science provides an avenue to solve environmental issues in our community through innovative, fact based research.

Academic goals:  I am currently majoring in Environmental Geology with a minor in political science. After my undergraduate career, I plan to continue to study climate issues in graduate school and am considering a joint JD/PhD program.

Career goals:  In the future, I would love to find new ways to combine scientific research with advocacy work and to contribute to driving forward lasting solutions to our climate crisis.

Even short term exposure to fine particulate pollution can lead to serious health effects, including cardiovascular issues, respiration issues, and premature death. Smoke events are a major contributing factor to fine particulate pollution in the atmosphere, especially during the summer months. This research aims to identify smoke events from data collected at the Hawthorne Site in Salt Lake City in order to better understand pollution sources in Salt Lake City. To do this, we extracted hourly PM 2.5 data from the EPA to locate summer smoke events. After the events were identified, we used NOAA’s HYSPLIT backwards trajectory model to identify possible sources. Two especially notable events occured on July 4, 2016 and July 6, 2018, which had concentrations of PM 2.5 much greater than 35 μg/m³ over the course of a few days. Results from HYSPLIT show that major sources of PM 2.5 pollution on these days were primarily wildfire smoke from Southern California.This process is a step toward identifying biomass burning hotspots that contribute to poor air quality across the Western US.

Identifying Salt Lake Valley Smoke Events and Source Fires Download Identifying Salt Lake Valley Smoke Events and Source Fires