Leadership in NASA Mission

  Flying into Hurricane Ingrid

  Field campaign in Guam

  NASA News Release

Radio program interview

   IEEE Cover Page

My research interest is clouds. Much of my past and ongoing research activity focuses on satellite remote sensing of clouds and study of cloud dynamics . Recently, I started to participate in airborne field campaigns, flying into convective clouds (heck of a ride! see video) to collect in situ measurements. Meanwhile, I am always keen to analyze model simulations to help interpret observations.

On satellite remote sensing, I am a member of NASA CloudSat/CALIPSO Science Team and of NOAA Climate Data Record (CDR) Team. On field work, I am a Science Leader of NASA SEAC4RS field campaign (see photos below) and a member of NSF CONTRAST campaign. I am also a team member of European Union's MOZAIC project.

1. EAS 417/B9025: Satellite Meteorology (syllabus)

2. EAS345/B4500: Hydrology (syllabus)

3. EAS472: Environmental Project (syllabus)

It's important to note that Atmospheric Science is a quantitative field. A common misunderstanding among many students is that it's mostly descriptive (like what we see on Weather Channel). But the truth is quite the opposite: our primary teaching/research tool is math, physics and computer programming (in fact, the weather forecastes seen on TV are largely based on the output of supercomputers sovling partial-differential equations of the atmosphere), so strong quantitative skills are important prerequisite for my classes.

Here is a good introduction to the modern Atmospheric Science prepared by the National Center for Atmospheric Science (NCAR).

(Grad Students) Andrew Lee (Ph.D.), Ricardo Anderson (MS), and Nazia Shah (MS)

(Alumni) Dr. G. Y. Liu (postdoc, 2007-2010), Cheila Benavides (MS, 2010), Mya M. Teiktin (MS, 2010), Hanii Takahashi (Ph.D. 2013), Amelia Prasad (Res. Assoc. 2012 - 2013)

These beautiful photos summarize the theme of our group: Big Apple and Deep Convection ! What's loading sign for? Well, that's an important character one needs to develop to be successful in academia - patience.