Congratulations to Dr. Yan Chen, who successfully defended her PhD dissertation and moved to a postdoc position in Colorado State University! She will be working on ecosystem modeling in Dr. Danica Lombardozzi’s group.

Congratulations to Koushan Mohammadi, who successfully defended his PhD dissertation and took a postdoctoral position in Tulane University. We wish him the best as he starts a new chapter of his career!

Koushan’s paper published in April is featured as a cover story in the latest (September) printed issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS). See the highlight here: Advanced Detection and Early Warning to Curb Agricultural Impact.

The lab welcomes three new members this fall!

Dr. Chu-Chun Chen joined our team as a postdoc. Dr. Chen received her PhD degree in Atmospheric Science from the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign. She will be working on understanding the role of vegetation feedback in drought development.

Ziqi Guo is a first year PhD student. He received his B.S. degree from China University of Mining and Technology and spent one year as a Research Assistant in Peking University. Ziqi is a recipient of the Impact Scholars Fellowship from the UConn Graduate School.

Himel Moulik is a first year PhD student who received his B.S. degree from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology. Himel joins our team as a NRT Fellow.

We look forward to their new achievements in the years to come.

Congratulations to Koushan for the publication of his paper “Impact Matters: Detection and Early Warning of Agriculturally Impactful Flash Droughts” in BAMS.  The paper has been chosen for a BAMS Highlight!

Dr. Wang has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS) . She was elected “for distinguished contributions to the understanding and prediction of land-atmosphere interactions and hydrological extremes”. Congratulations!

https://www.aaas.org/fellows/2023-fellows

Six UConn Faculty Members Named AAAS Fellows

 

• Welcome to Dr. Hongchen Qin, who joined our lab as a Postdoctoral Research Associate. Hongchen received his B.S. degree in Atmospheric Science from Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology and Ph.D. degree in Earth System Sciences from University of California, Irvine, and had experience working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab.
• The entire lab attended the AMS annual meeting in Baltimore. Dr. Wang and Faisal Mohammad Alvee presented our research on flash drought and extreme precipitation respectively.

Our lab has a strong show at the AGU Fall meeting in San Francisco. Dr. Wang, Makduma Badhan, and Koushan Mohammadi presented research on extreme precipitation, machine learning climate downscaling, and flash drought detection and prediction respectively. Lab alumni Dr. Meijian Yang and Dr. Yelin Jiang presented research on crop yield projection in the Corn Belt and drought development mechanisms in the U.S. Southwest.

• Dr. Wang and Dr. Meijian Yang were interviewed by Madeleine Baerg from the SeedWorld magazine on crop yield change projections in the Corn Belt. Here is the piece from Seed World Magazine: Post 2050: A  Corn Belt Without Corn
• The 5th National Climate Assessment was released today on November 14: https://nca2023.globalchange.gov/. Congratulations to the entire NCA5 team!  UConn is well represented on the NCA5 team, with both Dr. Wang (CEE) and Dr. Zhu (NRE) being co-authors for Chapter 6 Land Cover and Land-Use Changes!  
• Elaina Hancock put together this piece on UConn Today:  Two UConn Researchers Among NCA5 Authors

 

Dr. Wang is the proud recipient of the 2023 C.R. Klewin Inc. Excellence in Teaching Award! This award is given annually to a faculty selected (in May) by the graduating class of seniors in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Congratulations to Dr. Wang! Thanks and best wishes to the CEE Class of 2023! 

 

This month, UConn Today research spotlight reported on our lab’s paper about crop yield changes in the U.S. Corn Belt led by Dr. Meijian Yang. Read the news story here:

https://today.uconn.edu/2023/09/heat-stress-to-bring-big-changes-to-the-us-corn-belt/ 

Yara Medawar joined the lab as a first year PhD student and an NRT Fellow. Yara received her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Civil Engineering from Notre Dame University in Lebanon, and M.S. degree in Public Policy from UConn. Welcome, Yara!

Congratulations are due to Dr. Meijian Yang for the publication of two papers on the same day! “Water stress dominates the projected maize yield changes in Ethiopia” in Global and Planetary Changes (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2023.104216 ) and  “Heat stress to jeopardize crop production in the US Corn Belt based on downscaled CMIP5 projections” in Agricultural Systems ( https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2023.103746 )