chemistry

Rebecca Hornbrook

Rebecca Hornbrook 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 Rebecca Hornbrook rather than just read about it. In short: Rebecca Suzanne Hornbrook (born 1975) is an atmospheric chemist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). She currently holds the position of Project Scientist II while also belonging to a variety of groups based out of NCAR, UCAR, and NASA.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Rebecca Suzanne Hornbrook (born 1975) is an atmospheric chemist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). She currently holds the position of Project Scientist II while also belonging to a variety of groups based out of NCAR, UCAR, and NASA. She is notable for her work as one of the leading experts in Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) while possessing an interest in air quality, biosphere-atmosphere interactions, chemical kinetics, and photochemistry.

Early life and education Born on April 5, 1975, Rebecca Hornbrook grew up in Barrie, Ontario. While attending Innisdale Secondary School, Hornbrook excelled at science and math which encouraged her to study science after graduation. She attended York University in Toronto where she earned her undergraduate degree in chemistry while studying to become a high school science teacher. Towards the end of her undergraduate career, Hornbrook, who spent summers working at an atmospheric chemistry lab affiliated with York University's Centre For Atmospheric Chemistry, decided to pursue her graduate degree. After graduating with her Bachelor of Education in chemistry and mathematics as well as her Bachelor of Science in chemistry with honors in atmospheric chemistry, Hornbrook began her Doctor of Philosophy in chemistry at York University. Throughout her graduate education, she worked alongside Jochen Rudolph conducting research on Volatile organic compounds and their role in the chemistry of the troposphere. Hornbrook published a total of seven papers before graduating with her Ph.D. in chemistry from York University in 2005. Hornbrook is the recipient of two Governor General's Academic Medals which are awarded to the student who graduates a Canadian school with the highest grades. She was awarded the Gold Medal in 2006 for her Ph.D. dissertation completed the year before at York University and the Bronze Medal in 1994 while attending Innisdale Secondary School.

Career at NCAR and field campaigns After obtaining her Ph.D, Hornbrook accepted a position at NCAR where she currently serves as a Project Scientist II. Hornbrook has been a part of various groups and has received funding from both the National Science Foundation and NASA. Hornbrook has completed research in locations worldwide as well as the United States.

Research in the United States Hornbrook's work in the United States has focused on VOCs and air quality in specific regions. Most recently, Hornbrook was a part of the WE-CAN project which studied the effects of wildfires on air quality and the atmosphere. Wildfires have been a topic of interest to Hornbrook as one of her authored papers, Observations of nonmethane organic compounds during ARCTAS - Part 1: Biomass burning emissions and plume enhancements, focuses on the effects of wildfires on air quality at distances further away from the fires. Hornbrook has also contributed to increasing the understanding of anthropogenic emissions in the United States by focusing on VOCs and chemical changes of the atmosphere. In 2018, Hornbrook began to work as a part of the NASA ATom project which was part of the larger goal to prepare for the potential effects of global climate change. Her authored poster, as a result of the project, details the observations made of how the upper troposphere reacts with VOCs emitted by humans. WINTER was a 2015 project based out of northern Virginia that had an emphasis on looking at emissions in the northeastern United States and their effect on pollution over the region as well as the Atlantic Ocean. In 2013, Hornbrook contributed to the NOMADSS project which focused on looking at the effects of anthropogenic emissions in Chicago, Illinois and Gary, Indiana concluding that these emissions led to an increase of mercury in the area. A significant amount of Hornbrook's research has taken place in the Colorado Front Range. The BEACHON-ROCS study took place at the Manitou Forest Observatory in August, 2010 in order to understand reactive organic gases which can help model the atmosphere's oxidation capacity. The 2014 FRAPPE project was another Colorado based project that took a look at air quality in the Colorado Front Range and was partially funded by the state of Colorado. Hornbrook's research helped to understand how some weather patterns are more likely to retain aerosols than other weather patterns. Hornbrook gave a presentation at the Gordon Research Conference where she presented a poster about VOC observations during the FRAPPE project in the Colorado Front Range. Prior to the FRAPPE project, Hornbrook worked on DC3 in Kansas, an airborne campaign which focused on how convective clouds interact with the upper troposphere at mid latitudes. Hornbrook's group observed that the storms observed possessed a logical relationship on a chemical level. In 2009, Hornbrook conducted research in Barrow, Alaska as part of the OASIS-2009 campaign (Ocean-Atmosphere-Sea Ice-Snowpack). As part of a larger team, Hornbrook focused on studying VOCs as well as seasonal trends and oxidization events in the arctic. The research concluded that arctic seasonality does have an effect on the chemistry of the atmosphere. OASIS-2009 also provided a large set of data from the arctic that could be used for future analysis.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Rebecca Hornbrook

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Rebecca Hornbrook 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 Rebecca Hornbrook 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 Rebecca Hornbrook 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 Rebecca Hornbrook

In research: Rebecca Hornbrook 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 Rebecca Hornbrook 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: Rebecca Hornbrook is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1975 births, Atmospheric chemists, Canadian women scientists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Rebecca Hornbrook 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 Rebecca Hornbrook in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Rebecca Hornbrook 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 Rebecca Hornbrook out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Rebecca Hornbrook in simple terms?

Why does Rebecca Hornbrook 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 Rebecca Hornbrook?

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 Rebecca Hornbrook.