Kerri Pratt Receives EAS Young Investigator Award

The EAS Young Investigator Award will be presented to Kerri Pratt at the Eastern Analytical Symposium (EAS), in Princeton, New Jersey, on November 12. Pratt is the Seyhan N. Eğe assistant professor of the Department of Chemistry and Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

As a PhD student, Pratt received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) STAR Graduate Fellowship. She completed her postdoctoral research at Purdue University (West Lafayette, Indiana) as a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellow and NSF Postdoctoral Fellow in Polar Regions Research. Pratt joined the faculty of the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, Michigan) in 2013.

Pratt’s analytical and environmental chemistry research focuses on the application of novel mass spectrometry methods to the study of the chemical interactions of atmospheric trace gases, particles, clouds, and snow to improve understanding and prediction of air quality and climate change. Using a chemical ionization mass spectrometer, she has made significant advances in understanding Arctic snowpack photochemical reactions that result in the production of molecular halogen trace gases at sub-ppt to ppt levels. Notably, she published the first measurement of molecular iodine (I₂) in the Arctic and discovered the source to be photochemical oxidation of iodide in the sunlit snowpack. 

Among the awards Pratt has received for her innovative research are the American Society for Mass Spectrometry Research Award (2014), the Society for Analytical Chemists of Pittsburgh Starter Grant Award (2014), the National Academy of Sciences Gulf Research Program Early Career Fellowship (2016), Sloan Research Fellowship in Chemistry (2017), and the American Chemical Society James J. Morgan Environmental Science and Technology Early Career Lectureship (2018).