chemistry

Krishna Foster

Krishna Foster is a chemistry topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Krishna Foster rather than just read about it. In short: Krishna Lynne Foster (born January 7, 1970) is an American environmental chemist who is a professor at California State University, Los Angeles. Her research considers the impact of sunlight on pollutants.

Key takeaways

Krishna Foster belongs to chemistry; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Krishna Foster to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Krishna Foster from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Krishna Lynne Foster (born January 7, 1970) is an American environmental chemist who is a professor at California State University, Los Angeles. Her research considers the impact of sunlight on pollutants. Foster has worked to improve the representation of people of colour studying chemistry.

Early life and education Foster was born in Culver City, California. Her parents, Warren and Frances Foster, worked at IBM and San Diego State University. Foster has said that he was always encouraged to work hard, and she eventually attended the Helix High School. She has said that she enjoyed baking as a child, primarily because of how much chemistry it involved. Whilst still a teenager, Foster was awarded a NASA women in science fellowship. Foster attended Spelman College, which she graduated in 1992. As a student at Spelman, Foster took classes in environmental chemistry, and decided that this was a research area she would like to pursue. She moved to the University of Colorado Boulder for her graduate studies, where she specialised in hydrogen halides. In 1998 she moved back to California, joining University of California, Irvine as a postdoctoral researcher, where she worked alongside Barbara J. Finlayson-Pitts. Here her work made use of mass spectrometry to investigate sea salt particles.

Research and career Foster was appointed to the faculty at California State University, Los Angeles in 2000. That year she took part in Alert 2000, an international fieldwork programme to study the photochemistry of snow in Alert, Nunavut. Her research proposal looked to measure the concentrations of gaseous halogens using atmospheric-pressure chemical ionization. She has said that she joined Cal State LA because it valued teaching as much as research. There she has studied the impact of sunlight on pollutants, primarily at the air/water interface. She was awarded tenure in 2006 and the California State University, Los Angeles Distinguished Women Award in 2007. Beyond her work on pollutants, Foster has studied how phosphorus might have first been incorporated into living cells. Foster has worked to make science and technology more inclusive and more welcoming to students of colour. She established the Cal State Minorities Opportunities in Research programme, which introduces students from marginalised backgrounds to research methods. The National Science Foundation named Cal State LA as one of the top institutions for Latin Americans. She made use of the American Chemical Society Project SEED initiative to host Black chemists in her research lab. For her efforts, she was named a Minority Access National Role Model. She is the Director of the Minority Biomedical Research Support-Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement) (MBBRS-RISE) programme, which supports students of colour who look to become research scientists.

Select publications Foster, K. L. (2001-01-19). "The Role of Br2 and BrCl in Surface Ozone Destruction at Polar Sunrise". Science. 291 (5503): 471–474. Bibcode:2001Sci...291..471F. doi:10.1126/science.291.5503.471. PMID 11161198. Hanrahan, Grady; Salmassi, Tina M.; Khachikian, Crist S.; Foster, Krishna L. (2005-04-15). "Reduced inorganic phosphorus in the natural environment: significance, speciation and determination". Talanta. Analysis of Phosphorus in Environmental and Agricultural Samples. 66 (2): 435–444. doi:10.1016/j.talanta.2004.10.004. ISSN 0039-9140. PMID 18970004. Spicer, Chester W; Plastridge, Robert A; Foster, Krishna L; Finlayson-Pitts, Barbara J; Bottenheim, Jan W; Grannas, Amanda M; Shepson, Paul B (2002-05-01). "Molecular halogens before and during ozone depletion events in the Arctic at polar sunrise: concentrations and sources". Atmospheric Environment. Air/Snow/Ice Interactions in the Arctic: Results from ALERT 2000 and SUMMIT 2000. 36 (15): 2721–2731. Bibcode:2002AtmEn..36.2721S. doi:10.1016/S1352-2310(02)00125-5. ISSN 1352-2310.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Krishna Foster

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Krishna Foster claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In chemistry, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Krishna Foster before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Krishna Foster ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Krishna Foster

In research: Krishna Foster appears in chemistry research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Krishna Foster in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Krishna Foster is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1970 births, African-American chemists, Atmospheric chemists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Krishna Foster outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Krishna Foster in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Krishna Foster means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Krishna Foster out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Krishna Foster in simple terms?

Why does Krishna Foster matter?

Because it connects several chemistry ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Krishna Foster?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Krishna Foster.