Members of Lu Hu's lab gather for a photo while a forest fire burns in the background

Atmospheric Chemistry Under the Big Sky

Join Atmospheric Chemistry Group at UM

We are always seeking bright graduate and undergraduate students to join us. Potential projects include characterizing PTR-MS measurements for VOCs, data analysis of fire emission and smoke observations from our previous and future field campaigns, and box and 3D chemical modeling of the chemical impact of fire-related VOCs and ozone. Good candidates are expected to be comfortable with math and numbers, since programming will be needed for all potential projects. It is okay if you don't have any programming skills yet; they can be learned on the job as all my students did.

Note: Sorry I won't be able to reply to all emails from prospective students as I've been receiving many daily. Please make sure you express interest in my lab in your application so that I can look for it when we start to review it in January.

Specific opportunities for Fall 2026:

We will have 1 fully funded PhD student openings this year. We have a pending project that will examine nighttime fire emissions that are largely unknown but critical for predicting the next day air quality. There are also opportunities to contribute to our other ongoing aircraft and mobile field deployments to study summer ozone pollution in Salt Lake City and to study prescribed fires and their impact on regional air quality in the U.S. These field projects will involve developing and deploying our mass spectrometer and other instruments in new flying and mobile laboratories. Students will have opportunities to lead highly collaborative field projects and/or modeling efforts for these topics with substantial societal implications. If interested, please apply here (The priority deadline is December 15; reach out if you apply after this date).

Examples of awards received by our students and postdocs:

  • Emily Cope, honorable mention of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowships Program (GRFP), 2024
  • Lixu Jin, Cicerone Visiting Fellowship, NCAR, 2024
  • Joseph Knudsen, Best Oral Presentation award for the Physical Sciences category at UM Conference for Undergraduate Research, 2024
  • Mercedes Tucker, Montana Space Grant Fellowship, 2024 (declined)
  • Lixu Jin, Bertha Morton Scholarship, U of Montana, 2024
  • Wade Permar, Top cited article 2021-2022 in J. Geophys. Res., 2023
  • Damien Ketcherside, travel award to the PACES Open Science Meeting in Helsinki, Finland, 2023
  • Joseph Knudsen, Montana Space Grant Fellowship, 2023, 2024
  • Amy Christiansen, invited to attend the 16th Atmospheric Chemistry Colloquium for Emerging Senior Scientists (ACCESS XVI), 2021 
  • Vanessa Selimovic, invited to attend the 16th Atmospheric Chemistry Colloquium for Emerging Senior Scientists (ACCESS XVI), 2021
  • Damien Ketcherside, Honorable Mention in the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program, 2021
  • Wade Permar, Outstanding Student Presentation Award at AGU Fall Meeting 2020
  • Qian Wang, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences Postgraduate Program Fellowship, 2017-2018

Click the People page to see where previous group members went after graduation.

Check out these fun videos from our past WE-CAN project:

About UM and Missoula

UM

The University of Montana is a unit of the Montana University System with approximately 12,000 undergraduate and graduate students and 500+ full-time faculty members. It is located in Missoula, a culturally vibrant community of about 70,000, surrounded by mountain grandeur which was ranked in the "top 20 best college towns with a population of less than 250,000" by the American Institute for Economic Research and ranked 9th in Outside Magazine's "The 16 Greatest Places to Live in America" in 2014. Many national publications recognize Missoula for its high quality of life. Abundant recreational opportunities in surrounding state and national forests and nearby Glacier National Park and Yellowstone National Park complement a thriving intellectual atmosphere. 

Missoula