Heather Allen Popular Books

Heather Allen Biography & Facts

Heather Cecile Allen (born 1960) is a research chemist, who leads the Allen Group at Ohio State University. Allen's research focuses on interfacial phenomena, particularly those involving water and air. Her work has broad application ranging from medicine to climate change. She also develops nonlinear optical spectroscopy and microscopy instruments for the examination of interfacial surfaces.Allen has published more than 140 journal papers, and is reported to have an H-index of 51 as of May 2023. She has received a number of awards including the 2022 American Chemical Society Irving Langmuir Award in Chemical Physics, and in 2014 the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award. Allen's work on the structure of water was mentioned in Science magazine's list of the top ten breakthroughs of 2004. Education Heather Allen enrolled at Saddleback College, a community college, as an adult student at age 28. Interested in environmental science, she won a Science Scholarship Foundation Fellowship, enabling her to transfer to the University of California, Irvine to earn a chemistry or chemical engineering degree. She received her B.S. degree in chemistry from the University of California, Irvine in 1993, working as a research assistant with Frank Sherwood Rowland and Donald R. Blake. She received her Ph.D. in physical chemistry in 1997, working with John C. Hemminger and Barbara J. Finlayson-Pitts. The topic of her Ph.D. thesis was Fundamental surface processes in heterogeneous atmospheric chemistry: Applications to sea-salt (NaCl) and oxide particulate chemistry. She received several awards and postdoctoral fellowships, and did postdoctoral work with Geraldine L. Richmond at the University of Oregon. Career Heather Allen joined Ohio State University in 2000, as an assistant professor of environmental chemistry. She went on to become a full professor in the department of chemistry and biochemistry and in the department of pathology. She leads the Allen Group at Ohio State University. Interfacial phenomena Her research focuses on fundamental interfacial phenomena, the molecular organization and orientation at interfaces between gases and liquids, gases and solids, and liquids and solids. She is particularly interested in understanding the activities of ions and molecules in aqueous surface structures. Understanding molecular organization is essential to understanding the ways in which surfaces will react. Her studies of chemical reaction mechanisms have examined water, lipids, and fatty acids, among others.Her work has relevance to a wide variety of fields, from medicine to climate change. Medically, aqueous surface structures are particularly relevant in the understanding of cell membranes and skin surfaces, which function as gateways to the cell and the body. As a Beckman Young Investigator, Allen studied the biophysics of the lung as a barrier mediating oxygen and carbon dioxide transport, and the importance of pulmonary surfactants. Air, lipids, and water are all involved at the surface of the lung. Molecules of the alveolar lining were found to be important in the efficiency with which the lung could function.Allen has also examined the development of biomembranes with particular application to the detection of cancer margins. Her team is working on the development of infrared biomarkers and molecular level diagnostics for the use of cancer surgeons.Allen's studies of interfacial phenomena are also relevant to geophysics, geochemistry and climate. Her work includes studies of how ions and minerals interact at surfaces where they are involved in corrosion and the interactions of pollutants with soil.The effect of particles at surfaces is important in understanding the behavior of air and water at ocean surfaces, and the health of oceans. Recent research indicates that accumulated ions are present in the ocean's surface layers. Using highly accurate laser beams, researchers were able to see the structures formed by halogen ions, or halides, and surrounding molecules of water in the interfacial area. Halides such as iodide and bromide were found close to the surface, a result which challenged "conventional wisdom" on the subject. Chloride ions were found lower down. Iodide and bromide are unstable and tend to combine with other chemicals to form ozone. This means that fog and ocean spray are more chemically reactive than was previously believed by scientists. Allen's results may cause atmospheric chemists to revise their models of ozone activity and climate change.The behavior of atmospheric aerosols, particulate matter suspended in the atmosphere, is also related to climate change. Heather Allen is part of a national multidisciplinary group of researchers involved in the Center for Aerosol Impacts on Climate and the Environment (CAICE) who study the effects of atmospheric aerosols. Allen studies the surfaces of cloud systems and their electric fields, to better understand thunderstorms, lightning strikes and the effects of microdroplets on clouds and fogs. With Lisa Van Loon, she has examined the behavior of sulfuric acid and methanol, found as aerosols in the upper atmosphere. Together they can form methyl sulfate, a compound that attracts water droplets and supports cloud formation. While sulfuric acid can reflect light and heat, clouds tend to trap light and heat in the atmosphere. The interplay between sulfuric acid and atmospheric temperature change is therefore more complex than originally thought. “Aerosols are a major driver of climate change and have major impacts... their effect depends on their composition, size, surface properties, where they’re located in the environment—especially their inherent ability to scatter light, and clouds—all are variables.” Heather C. Allen Instrumentation Heather Allen and the Allen Group are involved in the design of nonlinear optical spectroscopy and microscopy instruments for scientific research. These include vibrational sum frequency generation (VSFG) spectroscopy, and broad-bandwidth sum frequency generation (BBSFG) spectroscopy, used for investigating gas-liquid and solid interfaces. Laser technology uses ultra-fast femtosecond and picosecond laser pulses to examine molecular-level interfaces and observe the orientation and structure of the chemical species within the surface regime, the surface signature. Other techniques used and studied include polarized Raman and infrared spectroscopy techniques, Brewster angle microscopy, and differential optical absorption spectroscopy. Awards 2001, Research Innovation Award from Research Corporation 2002, NSF CAREER Award 2003, Beckman Young Investigators Award 2005, Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship 2006, Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award 2012, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 2013, ACS Award for Encouraging Women into Careers in the Chemical Sciences, supported by The Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation 2014, Alexander von Humboldt.... Discover the Heather Allen popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Heather Allen books.

Best Seller Heather Allen Books of 2024

  • A Cup of Silver Linings synopsis, comments

    A Cup of Silver Linings

    Karen Hawkins

    Discover the “sometimes whimsical, often insightful, always absorbing” (Shelf Awareness) Dove Pond series with this novel that explores the magic in the tea leavesfrom New York Tim...

  • The Bookshop of Hidden Dreams synopsis, comments

    The Bookshop of Hidden Dreams

    Karen Hawkins

    A brand new novel in the “sometimes whimsical, often insightful, always absorbing” (Shelf Awareness) Dove Pond series that follows a gifted historian investigating the mystery of a...

  • Caged Bird synopsis, comments

    Caged Bird

    Katy Morgan-Davies

    'I was the shadow child no one ever saw...'From the day she was born until she escaped aged 30, Katy MorganDavies knew nothing but a life in captivity. Her father was the deluded a...

  • Just Breathe synopsis, comments

    Just Breathe

    Heather Allen

    Ever Harding, an average teenager with a passion for swimming is about to turn eighteen. Out of the blue she has been dumped by her long time boyfriend, which is the ultimate of tr...

  • The Sound Of Shooting Stars synopsis, comments

    The Sound Of Shooting Stars

    Heather Allen

    Jamie Grey grew up tossed around between foster homes. At an early age he shut the world out, deciding he wouldn’t care. Whatever life had to throw at him, he would look the other ...

  • A Bucket of Warm Water synopsis, comments

    A Bucket of Warm Water

    Heather Allen

    In the spring of 1989 we left British Columbia for a village in Zaire/Congo as volunteers with CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency). We expected heat and primitive livi...

  • The Secret Recipe of Ella Dove synopsis, comments

    The Secret Recipe of Ella Dove

    Karen Hawkins

    Three lives converge as a wildly talented baker returns to Dove Pond to face her past in this entry in the charming series that proves that sometimes miracles really do happen...El...

  • Forever Breathing synopsis, comments

    Forever Breathing

    Heather Allen

    Ever Harding has finally found where she belongs, with Jack in the sea. Just when she thought she could start her new life, a new threat forms on the horizon. She must make her big...

  • Storm of Ekkos synopsis, comments

    Storm of Ekkos

    Heather Allen

    What if Earth isn’t the only planet out there with life as we know it? What if one choice in the history of humans could change the entire course of the world?Hadley Morrow, a sixt...

  • Barely Breathing synopsis, comments

    Barely Breathing

    Heather Allen

    Ever Harding used to believe in love. That is until she was left heartbroken by the only person she ever really loved, Jack. The mysterious boy from her history class. Little did s...

  • Wicked Deeds synopsis, comments

    Wicked Deeds

    Heather Graham

    Nevermore…Eager to start their life together, historian Vickie Preston and Special Agent Griffin Pryce take a detour en route to their new home in Virginia and stop for a visit in ...

  • The Book Charmer synopsis, comments

    The Book Charmer

    Karen Hawkins

    Prepare to fall under the spell of “this sometimes whimsical, often insightful, always absorbing story” (Shelf Awareness) following two fiercely independent women and their truly m...

  • The Girl Who Said Goodbye synopsis, comments

    The Girl Who Said Goodbye

    Heather Allen

    Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 1975. After a sudden and violent takeover by the Khmer Rouge army, there is a mass exodus of the city. A young pharmacy student is held captive at a work camp...