Danielle Niles is a 2006 cum laude graduate of the University of Massachusetts Lowell where she earned her bachelor's degree in Atmospheric Science. She also earned a master's degree in meteorology at Florida State University. Her interests are in forecasting, broadcast meteorology, and tropical meteorology research.Danielle also was a 4 year student-athlete on the Women's Soccer team 2001-2005. She was Captain for the 2004-2005 season, the team's best in school history. She began her career at Weather Services International in Andover, MA as a forecaster for private energy companies. Danielle is currently the weekday morning meteorologist for NECN. Danielle is a member of the American Meteorological Society (AMS).

Below is a short description of the research, presentations, publications she made as a UML student.  

Research:
           Theoretical line shape calculations to determine the half-width and line shift for methane transitions in the Earth’s atmosphere in support of measurement campaigns on NASA’s Earth Observing System (EOS) satellites Aqua and Aura.  Total internal partition functions for methyl cyanide; CH3CN.
            Support for NASA’s EOS mission is for the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) on Aqua, and the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) and the High Resolution Dynamics Limb Sounder (HIRDLS) on AURA.  Both instruments will measure both H2O and CH4.  Here the calculations are for the systems CH4-N2 and CH4-O2 in order to determine air-broadening and shifting of methane.
           The spectral region covered by the instruments is 3.2 to 17.76 mm (AIRS, TES, HIRDLS), here we focus on the range 1000 to 3200 cm-1 for methane which contains
23 951 transitions.  For methane the dominant bands are the 00011001ß00000000 (10-17), 00000111ß00000000 (10-18), 01100001ß00000000 (10-19), and 01100112ß00000000 (10-19) bands, where the intensity units in parenthesis are in HITRAN units.  Calculations will be made for all strong and intermediate intensity transitions.  Initial calculations to adjust the intermolecular potential (atom-atom contribution) were done after which production runs will be made to generate a database of half-widths and line shifts for n3 of methane with air as the bath gas.
Danielle has continued the research of Sarah Wroblewski on the CH4-N2 system. Our codes now can run using any of the Dijon wavefunctions. We are currently employing the interacting band model wavefunctions transformed to a Wigner-D-matrix basis. Danielle has completed the optimization of the atom-atom part of the intermolecular potential. He work has led to the discovery of unusual behavior of the E species transitions in the calculation of the line shape parameters. She is now working on computing the half-widths and line shifts for the A- and F-species nu3 transitions of methane for the Aqua and Aura satellite programs.

For a short description of the CRB formalism  click here


CH3CN has been observed in the atmosphere of Titan, the largest moon of Jupiter.  It is also observed in the Earth’s atmosphere and is used as a biomass tracer due to its long residence time.  Routine observations of the Titan atmosphere are being done with the CIRS (Composite Infrared Spectrometer) on board of Cassini from 2004-2008.  The total internal partition sums are necessary to interpret the remotely sensed spectral data.  Calculations of total internal partition functions for CH3CN were done for the temperature range 65-3005 K in 1 K steps.  The rotational partition functions were calculated using analytical formula and the vibrational partition functions were determined using the harmonic approximation.  Finally the total internal partition function was taken by the product approximation; Qtot = Qrot x Qvib.  The data were taken at 25 K steps and a code to recalculate Q(T) at any temperature for CH3CN using 4-point Lagrange interpolation was created.  This work is in collaboration with colleagues at the NASA Langley Research Center and Laboratoire Interuniversitaire des Systemes Atmospheriques, Université Paris 12 et 7.

Presentations

  • June 23, 2008

Robert R. Gamache, Bobby Antony, Danielle L. Niles, Sarah B. Wroblewski, Caitlin M. Humphrey, Tony Gabard , "Half-widths and Line Shifts for Transitions in the v3 Band of Methane in the 2726-3200 cm-1 Spectral Region for Atmospheric Applications," the 10th Biennial HITRAN Database Conference, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, June 22-24, 2008

  • June 17, 2008

Robert R. Gamache, Bobby Antony, Danielle L. Niles, Sarah B. Wroblewski, Caitlin M. Humphrey, Tony Gabard, "Line Shape Parameters for v3 Transitions of 12CH4," the 19tth International Conference on Spectral Line Shapes, Valladolid, Spain, June 15-20, 2008

  • April 29, 2008

Caitlin M. Humphrey, Robert R. Gamache, Bobby Antony, Danielle L. Niles, Sarah B. Wroblewski, Tony Gabard , "N2-, O2- and Air-broadened Half-widths and Line Shifts for Transitions in the v3 Band of Methane in the 2726-3200 cm-1 Spectral Region," the 11th Annual Student Research Symposium, The University of Massachusetts Lowell, April 29, 2008

  • June 20, 2007

Curtis P. Rindsland, V. Malathy Devi, D. Chris Benner, Thomas A. Blake, Tony Masiello, Robert L. Sams, Linda R. Brown, Isabelle Kleimer, A. Dehayem Kamadjeu, Holger S. P. MŸller, Robert R. Gamache, Danielle L. Niles, "Spectral Line Parameters in the v4 Band of CH3CN," paper TC04, 62nd International Symposium on Molecular Spectroscopy, June 18-22 ,2007, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH

  • September 6, 2007

H. S. P. Müller, B. J. Drouin, J. C. Pearson, L. R. Brown, I. Kleiner, A. De-Hayem, J. Orphal, P. Chelin, C. P. Rinsland, V. M. Devi, D. C. Benner, T. A. Blake, T. Masiello, R. L. Sams, R. R. Gamache, D. L. Niles, "Laboratory Spectroscopy of Low-Lying Vibrational States of Methyl Cyanide, CH3CN," The Twentieth Colloquium on High-Resolution Molecular Spectroscopy, Dijon, France, September 3-7, 2007

  • April 25, 2006

Danielle Niles, Sarah Wroblewski and Robert R. Gamache, "ADJUSTING THE INTERMOLECULAR POTENTIAL FOR THE CH4-N2 SYSTEM," The Ninth Annual Student Research Symposium, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA

  • Sept. 15, 2005

Bobby Antony, Peter Gamache, Carlos Szembek, Danielle Niles, and Robert R. Gamache, Modified complex Robert-Bonamy formalism calculations for strong to weak interacting systems, 19th Colloquium on High Resolution Molecular Spectroscopy, 11-16 September, 2005, Salamanca, Spain

  • April 28, 2005

Danielle Niles, Robert Gamache, "Adjusting the intermolecular potential for the CH4-N2 system," The Eighth Annual Student Research Symposium, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA

Publications

Bobby K. Antony, Danielle L. Niles, Sarah B. Wroblewski, Caitlin M. Humphrey, Tony Gabard and Robert R. Gamache , "N2-, O2- and air-broadened half-widths and line shifts for transitions in the v3 band of methane in the 2726-3200 cm-1 spectral region," J. Mol. Spectrosc., 251, 268-281, 2008. PDF of article or JMS archive
C. P. Rinsland, V. Malathy Devi, D. Chris Benner, T. A. Blake, R. L. Sams, L. R. Brown, I. Kleiner, A. Dehayem-Kamadjeu, H.S.P. Muller, R. R. Gamache, D. L. Niles, T. Masielloh, "Multispectrum analysis of the v4 band of CH3CN: Positions, intensities, self and N2 broadening and pressure-induced shifts," J. Quant. Spectrosc. Radiat. Transfer 109, 974-994, 2008. PDF of article or JQSRT archive
Amitava Bandyopadhyay, Biswajit Ray, Pradip N. Ghosh, Danielle L. Niles and Robert R. Gamache, "Diode laser spectroscopic measurements and theoretical calculations of line parameters of nitrogen broadened water vapor overtone transitions in the 818-834 nm wavelength region", J. Mol. Spectrosc. 242, 10-16, 2007. Article or PDF preprint
Bobby Antony, Peter Gamache, Carlos Szembek, Danielle Niles, and Robert R. Gamache, "Modified complex Robert-Bonamy formalism calculations for strong to weak interacting systems," Molecular Physics, 104, 2791-2799, 2006. Article or PDF preprint