Expertise

Topics:  Kinetics, Atmospheric Chemistry, Energy, Sustainability, Organic Aerosol

Industries: Research, Education/Learning

Neil Donahue directs the Steinbrenner Institute for Environmental Education and Research. He seeks to understand how Earth’s atmosphere works, and how humans affect the atmosphere. Donahue’s research examines the behavior of organic compounds in Earth’s atmosphere, studying what happens to compounds from both natural sources and human activity when they are emitted into the atmosphere. Recently, his research has focused on the origin and transformations of very small organic particles, which play a critical role in climate change and human health.

Media Experience

Indiana plastics fire raises worries about health dangers  — The Seattle Times
Any significant disturbance, such as a structural failure, can release microscopic asbestos fibers, said Neil Donahue, a Carnegie Mellon University chemistry professor.

‘Smokeageddon’ was unprecedented. We can expect more of the same.  — WGN-TV
Neil Donahue, a chemistry professor at Carnegie Mellon University, greeted the haze with sad irony. Pittsburgh was once the Smoky City, its dramatic features blurred by perpetual soot from steel mills and coal plants.

Toxic gases connected to Ohio train derailment cause concern  — AP News
Neil Donahue, a professor chemistry at Carnegie Mellon University in nearby Pittsburgh, said he worries that the burning could have formed dioxins, which are created from burning chlorinated carbon materials.

In a wild first, physicists used lasers to control lightning on a mountaintop  — Inverse
Many mysteries remain in the physics of how lightning emerges, Neil Donahue, an atmospheric physical chemist from Carnegie Mellon who wasn’t involved in the new study, tells Inverse. “We for sure can't predict when and where a lightning strike will occur,” he says. “So something like this could be a useful tool in a scientific toolkit to explore this stuff.”

CMU Offers New Additional Major in Environmental and Sustainability Studies  — Carnegie Mellon University News
Neil Donahue is the director of the Steinbrenner Institute and the Thomas Lord University Professor in Chemistry with appointments in chemical engineering and engineering and public policy.