Jeffrey R. Kirkland

Jeffrey R. Kirkland completed his B.S. in Chemistry at the University of New Hampshire, and his master's and Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences at Rutgers University. He started his career in education in 2017 as an adjunct at the University of New England in Australia while also working as a lab and field technician. He moved back to the U.S. for a position as an Assistant Professor at Saint Cloud State University in central Minnesota in 2019. He joined the Norwich University Chemistry Department as an Assistant Professor in 2022.

As an undergraduate, Kirkland began his coursework as an undeclared major in the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences. As a first-generation college student, he remained flexible and open to opportunities that UNH had to offer. In doing so, he became a Chemistry tutor and Chemistry major shortly afterward. Additionally, Kirkland pursued and coordinated a semester abroad in Edinburgh, Scotland at Heriot-Watt University where he continued to meet the UNH major requirements while abroad. As graduation drew near, Kirkland took advice from faculty, family, and friends, and moved to California to pursue an industrial job. He worked with a temp agency and started as a Research Associate at a biofuel company in the Research and Development department. He began as a ‘temp’ and was hired full-time six months later.

Following advice from industrial scientists with more academic experience, Kirkland started graduate school in 2008. He joined a research group exploring atmospheric chemistry to evaluate impacts on air quality, visibility, climate, and human/ecological health. His focus was to evaluate natural systems through a collection of genuine environmental samples, chemical analysis in the lab, and simulations of natural systems through bench experiments. His fieldwork included sample collection in New Jersey, northern Italy (Po Valley), and Alabama. Kirkland continued field and laboratory work as a postdoctoral researcher at Colorado State University.

Kirkland returned to industry working as a Lab Manager and Service Technician repairing and calibrating instruments used primarily in the petroleum industry in 2015. He was drawn back to the academic setting through an opportunity to work at the University of New England in Australia where he rediscovered his interest in working with students. In 2021, Kirkland received $5,000 from Saint Cloud State University to build a field-sampling apparatus that can scrub water-soluble gases from ambient air. In 2022, Kirkland received $10,000 from the Vermont Biomedical Research Network with supplemental funds from the Norwich University Office of Academic Research to purchase field equipment used to collect particles from ambient air.

Kirkland’s research interests include the development of tools to collect environmental samples, the design of experiments to simulate natural systems in the lab, and the impact of small research projects on students’ perspectives of analytical chemistry, environmental chemistry, and industrial science. Kirkland looks forward to working alongside students as they pursue their degrees at Norwich and also as they pursue professional roles beyond Norwich.

Ph.D. Rutgers University

M.S. Rutgers University

B.S. University of New Hampshire

CH 103 General Chemistry I
CH 104 General Chemistry II
CH 204 Quantitative Analysis
CH 314 Instrumental Methods
CH 315 Analysis Laboratory

Gagic, V., Kirkland, L., Kendall, L., Jones, J., Kirkland, J., Spurr, C., Rader, R. Understanding pollinator foraging behaviour and transition rates between flowers is important to maximize seed set in hybrid crops (2020) Apidologie Vol. 52., 89-100

Mattila, J.M., Brophy, P., Kirkland, J., Hall, S., Ullmann, K., Fischer, E.V., Brown, S., McDuffie, E., Tevlin, A., Farmer, D.K. Tropospheric sources and sinks of gas-phase acids in the Colorado Front Range (2019) Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics Vol. 18., 12315-12327

Zaragosa, J., Callahan, S., Kirkland, J., Brophy, P., Durrett, L., Farmer, D.K., Zhou, Y., Sive, B., Flocke, F., Pfister, G., Knote, C., Tevlin, A., Murphy, J., McDuffie, E.E., Fischer, E.V. Ground-based observations of acyl peroxy nitrates during the Front Range Air Pollution and Photochemistry Experiment (FRAPPE) (2017) Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres Vol. 122, 22. 12,416-12,432