James Hite is a 5th year graduate student whose line of research includes aerosols, clouds, and climate. His thesis will focus on thermodynamics of secondary organic aerosol. James received a B.S. in EAS in 2011 and an M.S. in EAS in 2012,both under the direction of Dr. Thanos Nenes. Some of his accomplishments include Air & Waste Management Association’s Southern Section Scholarship (August 2015), NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship (May 2015), National Instruments Certified LabVIEW Associate Developer (June 2013), Glen Cass Award (April 2013), and Student Poster Competition Winner at the American Association for Aerosol Research 31st Annual Conference (October 2012).

His future projects include field deployment this spring to Korea with aerosol research group from NASA Langley: KORUS-AQ. He is currently working on publications based on previous field deployment with NASA group, collaborative smog chamber experiments at Caltech, and ongoing development of a measurement & modeling technique for estimating organic aerosol volatility.

James says that other interests of his include arguing pointlessly about things like current events, politics, and philosophy. Anything that tends to evoke a visceral response in folks, for instance, cats are better than dogs. He is both the graduate student senator for the EAS department and the Secretary of Graduate SGA. James enjoys listening to podcasts or music during work. His current music playlist includes both Fleshgod Apocalypse and The J. Gelis Band. During his spare time, he chooses video games as his entertainment of choice.