People
Atmospheric chemistry is a very multidisciplinary approach of research. Our team members have diverse backgrounds and expertise, and we collaboratively address the environmental challenges.
Group Leader
Dr. Zhen Qu
Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder
B.S., Physics, Peking University
Zhen is an Assistant Professor in Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and a faculty fellow of the Center for Geospatial Analytics. She had her postdoc training at Harvard University. She utilizes statistics, high-performance computing, and satellite observations to investigate how human activities are altering atmospheric composition and chemistry, and how these changes interact with climate change. She develops algorithms and modeling approaches to expand our process-level understanding of man-made and natural emissions and the sensitivity of air pollution exposure to the emissions.
Postdoctoral Researchers
Dr. Kai Fan
Ph.D., Civil and Environmental Engineering, Washington State University
M.S., Civil and Environmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University
M.E., Environmental Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences
B.S., Ecology, University of Science and Technology Beijing
Kai’s research interests include air quality, meteorology, and climate change. He employs a diverse range of models to predict air quality across different temporal and spatial dimensions. He aspires to explore the air quality under different climate change scenarios, and better understand the physical and chemical mechanisms of air pollutants through chemical transport model and predictive model simulations.
Dr. Nana Wu
Ph.D., Atmospheric Science, Tsinghua University
B.S., Atmospheric Science, Nanjing University
Nana is interested in improving the estimation of anthropogenic emissions to inform the development of climate and environment strategies. Her research primarily focuses on emission estimation using top-down and bottom-up approaches and atmosphere chemistry modeling. In her free time, she enjoys making flower bouquets, the art of flower pressing, and working out at gym.
Graduate Students
Joshua Kumm
B.S., Meteorology & Computational Mathematics, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
Josh applies chemical transport model and data assimilation to study the origins of air pollution and its sensitivity to emissions. Data assimilation and atmospheric modeling have been his passions since he worked with the NOAA Environmental Modeling Center as part of the Lapenta internship program. In his free time, he enjoys running, working out, cooking, going to the beach, and hanging out with friends.
Elliot Maceda
B.S., Mathematics, University of Houston
Elliot is interested in the differences and tradeoffs between mathematical models and statistical models. He is also interested in studying how to speed up algorithms using different computational strategies. Currently he is working on constructing a statistical emulator for global NOx emissions. He is also working with another team to develop a novel approach to computing the posterior distribution in the presence of intractable likelihoods.
Undergraduate Student
Kevin Luo
Mathematics & Statistics, Harvard College
Kevin is a visiting undergraduate student from Harvard College. He is primarily interested in the inverse modeling of methane emissions. He has worked on improving covariance matrix estimation and improving source attribution through the use of isotopic data.
Alumni
James Jin, Undergraduate Research Assistant, Environmental Sciences, North Carolina State University
Interested in joining us?
I am looking for motivated graduate students to join our group. Please see Join Us for more details.