Castle Group News
  • May 2009: Stephanie Rink, Mike Simione, Kristy Brown, and Andrea Asimoglou receive their bachelor's degrees.

  • April 2009: Prof. Castle promoted to associate professor with tenure.

  • January 2009: Undergraduate Jakob Schaeffer joins the group.

  • May 2008: Andrea Brown receives BA degree and goes to work for Pfizer.

  • May 2008: BS/MS student Tara Pedersen joins the group.

  • April 2008: Castle group presents work at ACS meeting.

  • January 2008: Undergraduates Tom Vogler, Stephen Ragard, and Kristy Brown join the group.

  • December 2007: Castle group presents work at AGU meeting.

  • September 2007: New MS student Labe Black joins the group.

  • August 2007: Castle lab receives new 3-year NSF/CEDAR grant!

  • June 2007: Darrell Kyle (MA program for high school teachers) joins the group.

  • May 2007: Castle and Dodd labs receive new 3-year NASA grant!

    Current Group Members
    Jakob Schaeffer (BS PHYS '10)
    Darrell Kyle (MA CHEM '09)
    Labe Black (MS CHEM '09)
    Stephen Ragard (BS CHEM '10)
    Tara Pedersen (BS/MS CHEM '10)

    Teaching Interests
    Physical Chemistry II
    Introduction to Molecular Spectroscopy
    Physical Chemistry for Engineers
    Inorganic Chemistry I
    General Chemistry I
    Seminar in Atmospheric Chemistry
    Research in Science Capstone
    Undergraduate and Graduate Research

    Former Group Members
    Tom Vogler (BS CHEM '10)
    Kristy Brown (BS CHEM '09)
    Michael Simione (BS CHEM '09)
    Stephanie Rink (BA CHEM '09)
    Andrea Asimoglou (BS BICH '09)
    Andrea Brown (BA CHEM '08)
    Justin Rhinehart (MS CHEM '08)
    Dustin Schroeder (BS EE/PHYS '07)
    Kristi Cashman (BS CHEM '06)
    Michael Heinrich (BS CHEM '06)
    Rebecca Rupp (BS BIO '05)
    Carmen Gherghisan (BS BIO '05)
    Brian Day (BA CHEM '05)
    Katie Kleissas (BS CHEM '04)
    Betsy Staudt (BS CHEM '04)

    		•

    Dr. Karen J. Castle
    Associate Professor of Chemistry
    317 Rooke Chemistry Building
    Bucknell University
    Lewisburg, PA 17837
    (570) 577-3092
    kcastle@bucknell.edu

    For more information on Professor Castle, see this abbreviated CV.


      
    Left: Tom and Labe analyze some transient absorption data
    Right: Castle research group in the fall of 2007 (Labe, Andrea, Stephanie, and Mike)


    Our Research
    Our group uses laser spectroscopy to study chemical and physical processes that are important in Earth's upper atmosphere.

    For details on our current aeronomy experiments, check out our aeronomy page.

    Current Funding
     Our work on CO2-O vibrational energy transfer is supported by NASA Geospace Sciences and our work on O3-O vibrational energy transfer is supported by NSF's CEDAR program.

    Recent Publications  (Bucknell students denoted with a *)
     Karen J. Castle, Labe A. Black*, Michael W. Simione*, Eunsook S. Hwang, and James A. Dodd, Geophys. Res. Lett., Submitted (2008). “Vibrational Relaxation of CO2(n2) by O in the 170-490 K Temperature Range”

    Karen J. Castle, J. Chem. Educ. 84, 459 (2007). “High-resolution vibration-rotation spectroscopy of CO2: Understanding the Boltzmann Distribution.”

    Karen J. Castle, Katherine M. Kleissas*, Justin M. Rhinehart*, Eunsook S. Hwang, and James A. Dodd, J. Geophys. Res. 111, A09303 (2006). “Vibrational relaxation of CO2(nu2) by atomic oxygen.”

    Karen J. Castle, Katherine M. Kleissas*, Justin M. Rhinehart*, Eunsook S. Hwang, and James A. Dodd, Proceedings of SPIE: Remote Sensing of Clouds and the Atmosphere 5979 , 597910 (2005). “Room Temperature Measurements of CO2(nu2)-O Vibrational Energy Transfer."

    James A. Dodd, Eunsook S. Hwang, Karen J. Castle, and Gary D. DeBoer, J. Phys. Chem. A 108, 10965 (2004). "O + CnH2n Products Detected via IR Emission: I. O + C2H4."

    Karen J. Castle, Eunsook S. Hwang, and James A. Dodd, Remote Sensing of Clouds and the Atmosphere (SPIE), 5235, 276 (2004). “Laboratory Studies of CO2(n2)-O Vibrational Energy Transfer."

    Eunsook S. Hwang, Karen J. Castle, and James A. Dodd, J. Geophys. Res. 108, 1109 (2003). "Vibrational Relaxation of NO(v=1) by Oxygen Atoms Between 295 and 825 K."