Danielle Draper ’13 wins Class of ’21 award

The Class of ’21 Award is a Reed alumni-endowed award that recognizes creative work involving an unusual degree of initiative and spontaneity. This year’s winner is chemist Danielle Draper ’13, “NO₂ effects on nighttime secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation” (adv. Prof. Juliane Fry). (You may recall Danielle and Julie from ‘Thank You’ to Our Supporters, April 5, 2013.)

Centennial Campaign 'Thank You'

Danielle has found several ways to investigate aerosol formation mechanisms, including spending a summer in the Rocky Mountains measuring naturally occurring aerosols, generating aerosols under controlled conditions in the lab in a large plastic bag (she says I should refer to this as a ‘chamber’), and also choreographing and performing (with several aerial acrobat classmates at Portland’s Do Jump theatre school) an aerial dance illustrating the results of her thesis research.

Here are videos (courtesy Dr. Dave Michalak): Dance #1, Dance #2, Dance #3 (showing the effects of rain on aerosol formation). FYI: the colors of the dancers’ shirts indicate whether they represent organic molecules emitted by vegetation (green) or NO2 (orange). Here are two pictures from after the performance, one with a bunch of Reed seniors and one with Julie Fry:

L to R: Kathryn Sackinger '13, James Bianconi '13, Emma Farley '13, Kayla Sheridan '13, Rachel Baden '13, Profs. Maggie Geselbracht and Arthur Glasfeld, Erin Jacot '13, Danielle Draper '13

L to R: Kathryn Sackinger ’13, James Bianconi ’13, Emma Farley ’13, Kayla Sheridan ’13, Rachel Baden ’13, Profs. Maggie Geselbracht and Arthur Glasfeld, Erin Jacot ’13, Danielle Draper ’13

L to R: Danielle Draper '13, Dr. David Michalak, Prof. Julie Fry

L to R: Danielle Draper ’13, Dr. David Michalak, Prof. Julie Fry

Danielle has already been informed by UC-Irvine’s graduate school that she is welcome to continue her studies there “whenever she is ready,” but it would be wise for UCI to be patient. Danielle recently received the highly coveted Glenn P. Davis scholarship for “a dancer already exploring choreoraphy in the air” and will be attending the 15th International Aerial Dance Festival in Boulder, Colorado this summer as a guest dancer/choreographer.

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