Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) scientist Allison Aiken has been named to Thomson Reuters 2014 list of “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds.” The award recognized Aiken as an author among the top 1 percent most cited for her research in aerosol measurements within the field of geosciences between 2002 and 2012. Only 3,000 authors were recognized with this status in 2014. This award proves Aiken to be distinguished at an early stage in her career.

In addition to being highly cited over the last decade, Aiken has produced work within the last 2 years that has made a notable impact on her peers. Her research and experiments are found to be groundbreaking and influential.

Joining the ARM Climate Research Facility in 2013, Aiken is the operations lead for the ARM Mobile Aerosol Observing System (MAOS). Currently, she is operating 20 instruments—15 aerosol and 5 gas-phase—deployed for the GOAMAZON field campaign in Manacapuru, Brazil. Aiken is also a co-mentor for two ARM photoacoustic soot spectrometers in deployment.

Aiken received her undergraduate degrees from Furman University in chemistry and biology in 2002. She received her doctoral degree in chemistry in 2008 from the University of Colorado-Boulder for her work on aerosol mass spectrometry, which included both laboratory and field measurements. Aiken was a Director’s Postdoctoral Fellow at LANL until last year when she was converted to a research scientist, focusing on ambient aerosol measurements.