Agnieszka Kupc
BACKGROUND
Agnieszka holds a graduate degree (B.Sc.) in Environmental Protection and Management from the Gdansk University of Technology (2004), and a post-graduate degree (M.Sc.) in Natural Resources Management and Ecological Engineering, jointly awarded by the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences in Vienna, Austria and the Lincoln University in Canterbury, New Zealand. After her graduation in 2008 she held a Trainee position at the Joint Research Center of the European Commission in Ispra, Italy, working within the project Characterization of Atmospheric Aerosols. She also held a Trainee position at the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management in Gdynia, Poland in 2004. Earlier, in 2003, she was an Erasmus exchange student at the Instituto Superior Tecnico in Lisbon, Portugal.
Ph.D RESEARCH
Agnieszka is currently doing her Ph.D in the field of heterogeneous nucleation of water vapor on uncharged and charged particles and ions, and its temperature dependence at the
Aerosol and Environmental Physics Group, Faculty of Physics, University of
Vienna, Austria.
Her experimental study focuses on the activation of molecular ions, as well as charged and neutral aerosol particles, with diameters down to about 1nm in supersaturated water vapor. The aim of this study is to clarify the dependence of the heterogeneous nucleation of water vapor on seed particle size and charging state, with particular focus on nucleation behavior at different nucleation temperatures.
Heterogeneous nucleation probabilities are determined using an expansion chamber, the Size Analyzing Nuclei Counter (SANC), for measuring droplet number concentration. Besides the SANC, the experimental system consists mainly of aerosol-, and vapor generation units. Particles inducing heterogeneous nucleation in the SANC system at the vapor supersaturations considered, lead to the formation and growth of liquid droplets, which then are optically detected by means of the Constant-Angle Mie Scattering (CAMS) method.
Additionally, she is involved in the further development and characterization of a new Multi-Channel expansion-type Condensation Particle Counter (MCSANC) with low diffusion losses.
CLOUD CONTRIBUTION
As one of the CLOUD ITN students and part of the Aerosol and Environmental Physics (AEP) Group from the University of Vienna, she also works on the CLOUD project. Main contributions include the characterization of the fibre optic UV illumination system, the measurement of particle number concentrations by means of a continuous-flow water Condensation Particle Counter (CPC), and the future integration of the newly developed Multi-Channel expansion-type CPC (MCSANC) into the CLOUD experimental setup.