Rebecca Rowe: Professor of Natural Resources and the Environment

Rebecca Rowe is an associate professor and program coordinator for wildlife and conservation biology in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment at the University of New Hampshire. Below is a correspondence with Dr. Rowe about her own research and her mentoring experiences with undergraduate students

Nick Smith: Professor of Philosophy

Nick Smith is professor and chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of New Hampshire. Below is a correspondence with Dr. Smith about his own research and his mentoring experiences with undergraduate students

Jill Thorson: Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders

Jill Thorson is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of New Hampshire. Below is a correspondence with Dr. Thorson about her own research and her mentoring experiences with undergraduate students

Nan Yi: Professor of Chemical Engineering

Nan Yi is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of New Hampshire. Below is a correspondence with Dr. Yi about his own research and mentoring experiences with undergraduate students

The Clinical and Psychosocial Outcomes for Women Who Received Unexpected Clinically Actionable Germline Information Identified through Research: An Exploratory Sequential Mixed-Methods Comparative Study

Background Research identifying and returning clinically actionable germline variants offer a new avenue of access to genetic information. The psychosocial and clinical outcomes for women who have received this ‘genome-first care’ delivering hereditary breast and ovarian cancer risk information outside of clinical genetics services are unknown. Methods: An exploratory sequential mixed-methods case-control study compared outcomes between women who did (cases; group 1) and did not (controls; group 2) receive clinically actionable genetic information from a research cohort in Victoria, Australia. Participants completed an online survey examining cancer risk perception and worry, and group 1 also completed distress and adaptation measures. Group 1 participants subsequently completed a semi structured interview. Results: Forty-five participants (group 1) and 96 (group 2) completed the online survey, and 31 group 1 participants were interviewed. There were no demographic differences between groups 1 and 2, although more of group 1 participants had children (p = 0.03). Group 1 reported significantly higher breast cancer risk perception (p < 0.001) compared to group 2, and higher cancer worry than group 2 (p < 0.001). Some group 1 participants described how receiving their genetic information heightened their cancer risk perception and exacerbated their cancer worry while waiting for risk-reducing surgery. Group 1 participants reported a MICRA mean score of 27.4 (SD 11.8, range 9–56; possible range 0–95), and an adaptation score of 2.9 (SD = 1.1). Conclusion: There were no adverse psychological outcomes amongst women who received clinically actionable germline information through a model of ‘genome-first’ care compared to those who did not. These findings support the return of clinically actionable research results to research participants

Carbon oxidation state as a metric for describing the chemistry of atmospheric organic aerosol

A detailed understanding of the sources, transformations and fates of organic species in the environment is crucial because of the central roles that they play in human health, biogeochemical cycles and the Earth's climate. However, such an understanding is hindered by the immense chemical complexity of environmental mixtures of organics; for example, atmospheric organic aerosol consists of at least thousands of individual compounds, all of which likely evolve chemically over their atmospheric lifetimes. Here, we demonstrate the utility of describing organic aerosol (and other complex organic mixtures) in terms of average carbon oxidation state, a quantity that always increases with oxidation, and is readily measured using state-of-the-art analytical techniques. Field and laboratory measurements of the average carbon oxidation state, using several such techniques, constrain the chemical properties of the organics and demonstrate that the formation and evolution of organic aerosol involves simultaneous changes to both carbon oxidation state and carbon number.United States. Environmental Protection Agency (Science To Achieve Results (STAR) program (grant R833746))United States. Dept. of Energy (DOE: grant DE-FG02-05ER63995)United States. Dept. of Energy (DOE: grant ATM-0449815)United States. Dept. of Energy (DOE: grant ATM-0919189)United States. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA: grant NA08OAR4310565)United States. Dept. of Energy (Director, Office of Energy Research, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, and Chemical Sciences Division of the US DOE (contract no. DE-AC02-05CH11231))Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program)Henry & Camille Dreyfus Foundatio