Elly Breves

Elly Breves is a PhD student in the Multidisciplinary Science Program at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Prior to joining RPI, Elly received a BS in Chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh (in her hometown) and an MS in Chemical Oceanography from the University of Rhode Island. She has worked as an analytical chemist in the fields of Oceanography and Planetary Science at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, Mount Holyoke College, where she was a collaborator on the ChemCam team for Mars Science Laboratory, and Skidmore College.

Elly’s research with Prof. Shelley focuses on developing computational data reduction and visualization techniques for mass spectral analyses of organic compounds in complex natural samples such as meteorites. Mass spectra of meteorites are a convolution of thousands of features arising from ambient species, terrestrial contaminants, and indigenous extraterrestrial material. Elly is applying a novel cross-correlation-based technique to identify ions with similar time responses (change in signal over time) during sample analysis, which can indicate that ions are related by precursor molecule, functionality or substructure. Elly uses this similarity metric, as well as the mass difference between pairs of mass spectral peaks, to model the chemical relationship between series of molecules in geological samples using graph theory. This visualization can aid in formula assignment and structural elucidation, helping to uncover mechanisms of organic synthesis in geological systems.