05/22/2019
Congratulations to our longtime member and former OCDS President David Gonzalez, whose dissertation was recently accepted! Best of luck on your future endeavors, Dr. Gonzalez!
Meet David Gonzalez - a 5th year PhD student in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, our current co-president, and our Highlighted Member of the Month!
David comes from the Lone Star state. His father immigrated to the US from Mexico, and as David tells it, “My dad immigrated from Mexico riding on the back of an onion truck in the 60’s.” His mom grew up in a Mexican-American family in Houston, Texas. Although David is the youngest of four, somehow he was the only one born in Mexico. Growing up, David’s dad would work odd jobs and his mom drove a bus for the school district. David adds that his mom was notorious for buying clothes, antiques and furniture and reselling them on the weekends at the “Flea Market” aka La Pulga, Swap Meet, or the Swap. Neither parents had college degrees, although David’s dad did attend some college after his service in the US Army.
David’s family moved around quite a bit when he was growing up, ranging from Mexico, to Texas, to Indiana, and finally landing in Simi Valley, CA in 2007. In high school, David remembers some key learning experiences that gave him skills he still utilizes in his current academic career. First, David worked in broadcast journalism his senior year where he wrote, filmed, and edited school news packages that would appear on classroom TV’s every Friday. In addition, David spent three years as a cadet in the Army JROTC program. David recalls of these two experiences, “This is where I first got skills in public speaking, camera presence and communicating information in a simple and engaging way.”
High school is also where David met the person who inspired him to pursue a career in chemistry, his high school AP chemistry teacher, Ms. Donna Tate ( on Twitter!). However, before she would inspire him to pursue chemistry, she first helped David realize that pursuing such a technical career would even be possible for him. David’s grades weren’t stellar early on in high school, “I was a pretty terrible high school student, especially freshman year.” Although he was able to bump up his GPA by the end of senior year, he says that no one at that point thought he would be a scientist.
However, David describes where this took a turn with the help of his chemistry teacher. “Ms. Tate was always very warm and encouraging. I’ll never forget the day after my first exam, I walked into the classroom and she stopped me. She said in a very sweet voice, ‘David, you did VERY well on the multiple choice. You only missed three!’ I remember thinking ‘Wow, maybe I am good at this. Maybe I can pull this off.’ My interest in chemistry only grew from there.”
By the end of the year, David told Ms. Tate he wanted to study chemistry, and she encouraged him to. He went on to pass the AP Chemistry exam - something he didn’t initially think he was capable of - giving him the confidence to pursue “the turbulent path of becoming a chemist.” The experience reminds David that to increase the presence of underrepresented populations in the sciences, not only do we need to enable them to exceed in the sciences, but we need to let them know that they succeeding in the sciences is even an option!
After high school, David enrolled in Moorpark Community College. He spent 3 years there and was a teaching assistant for two physics courses, graduating in May 2010 with associate degrees in chemistry, physics, and astrophysics. After community college, David transferred to UCLA and graduated in 2012 with a B.S. in Chemistry, Specializing in Physical Chemistry, and minoring in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOS).
In terms of research at UCLA, David first worked in Dr. Paula Diaconescu’s lab as an undergraduate synthesizing ferrocene-1, 1’-diamine ligands, learning purification techniques, and also Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. However, David realized organic chemistry synthesis wasn’t in the cards for him, which allowed him to take a step back from research and rethink where he wanted to put his scientific efforts. He decided to switch gears and join Dr. Suzanne Paulson’s atmospheric chemistry group in June 2012 as an undergraduate. David loved that he could address large-scale societal problems such as air pollution and climate change while still using his chemistry training to explain the molecular detail underlying these issues.
His current research explores the harmful health effects of microscopic air pollution particles. Epidemiology studies demonstrate that the inhalation of these particles is associated with increased deaths, heart and lung illnesses. These particles are so small (
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