Did you always know that you wanted to be an Atmospheric Scientist?
Definitely not, and it has been a fairly circuitous route to where I’ve ended up! When I was applying to colleges, I was sure that I wanted to major in Environmental Sciences, and I selected my school specifically for their ES program. But my first semester, I decided to take organic chemistry as an elective, fell in love, and was easily convinced to major in Chemistry with a focus in Environmental Chemistry instead. A few years later, I was lucky enough to be part of the inaugural collaboration between Colby College and Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences (East Boothbay, ME), which connected me back to my early interests in the ocean and Earth sciences, while applying chemistry techniques to research in air-sea gas exchange. This ended up being a pivotal moment in my research career, leading to 3 years of research, an undergraduate honors thesis, my first field experiences on day-long cruises, and ultimately a month-long research cruise and then a field campaign in Antarctica, which had been a life-long dream. I finished college knowing I had a passion for field research and scientific instrumentation, but unsure how I wanted to apply it. So, I took advantage of the mentoring connections I’d made during college and explored some new research areas. This took me first to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (UC San Diego, San Diego, CA), where I again studied air-sea exchange, but this time looking at the production of marine aerosols and their impacts once in the atmosphere. And then to the University of St. Andrews (St. Andrews, Scotland), where I used sulfur isotopes in ice cores to understand how particles emitted from volcanoes impact Earth’s energy balance. When it came time to decide on a graduate program, I ended up selecting atmospheric science because it combined my interests in the ocean, atmosphere, and chemistry, and allowed me to apply my skills towards developing instrumentation and deploying them on research campaigns.
What is your research focus?
My research interests lie at the intersection of aerosols, clouds, and climate, with a particular focus on how aerosols impact cloud phase in the polar regions. Clouds can be composed of liquid droplets, ice crystals, or a mix of both, which determines a lot about the cloud: how long it lives, how much it precipitates, and how it interacts with sunlight. Over the Southern Ocean around Antarctica and in the Arctic, clouds are common year-round, with some areas approaching 80% cloud coverage annually. And unlike the tropics or mid-latitudes, at the poles it is common to have widespread low-altitude clouds that have temperatures below 0°C but are still made of liquid droplets. When rare aerosol particles called Ice Nucleating Particles (INPs) interact with these supercooled liquid clouds, they can quickly freeze, which causes the cloud to reflect less sunlight back to space and also decreases how long the cloud lives, compounding this effect. In the polar regions where these low, supercooled clouds are common year-round, the fraction of these clouds that freeze has important impacts on surface temperature and Earth’s energy balance. However, these interactions between aerosols, clouds, and radiation, especially in polar regions, are not well represented in current models. In fact, modeling of aerosols and clouds in general is a major weakness in global models, and one of the leading causes of uncertainty in predicting future climate. For my graduate research, I built and deployed custom instrumentation to make some of the few field measurements of INPs in the Southern Ocean, then collaborated with modelers to test and improve parameterizations of cloud freezing. Now as a post-doc, I am using NASA satellite data (from CALIPSO and CloudSat), paired with aerosol modeling in the NASA GEOS model to study aerosol-cloud-radiation interactions in both the Arctic and Southern Ocean.
What aspect(s) of your work are you most passionate about?
I love being a part of field campaigns, particularly research cruises. I find the fast-paced, collaborative environment to be incredibly exciting and motivating. My research has taken me on research cruises from the coast of Maine to the tropical Pacific and the Southern Ocean, flight campaigns in wildfire smoke plumes and growing thunderstorms, and to an assortment of ground sites across the US and even Antarctica. Even though they often involve very long (12+ hour) days, difficult physical and weather conditions, and close quarters with your colleagues, it is very rewarding to focus all of your attention and effort on one task and see it all the way through. And the opportunity to see whales, penguins, dolphins, seals, birds, and the Southern Lights in their natural environment is an incredible bonus. These campaigns can last anywhere from a single day to many months, so there are often group activities, ceremonies, and games to celebrate special occasions and provide a sense of community. One of my favorite traditions from research cruises are “crossing ceremonies”, to celebrate crossing over the Arctic or Antarctic Circle, Equator, or other prominent geographic demarcations. These often involve a few hours of activities (songs, skits, obstacle courses), costumes, and lots of fun. Such activities, or group game/movie nights, provide much-needed breaks from long days of operating, maintaining, or repairing instruments and collecting air or water samples at all times of day and night, based on when you arrive at your desired sampling locations. I’ve found there is nothing quite like being doused in freezing cold seawater at 3am or venturing out on deck in a Southern Ocean storm to save your sample to a) wake you up and b) bond you firmly with your colleagues. I count myself incredibly lucky to be part of both the atmospheric science and oceanography field communities, which are filled with extremely supportive people who are willing to help troubleshoot a broken instrument, collect samples, or talk through a coding or analysis issue whenever it's needed.
(Right) Helping haul in oceanographic water-sampling equipment during a night-time sample collection.
My research has taken me on research cruises from the coast of Maine to the tropical Pacific and the Southern Ocean, flight campaigns in wildfire smoke plumes and growing thunderstorms, and to an assortment of ground sites across the U.S. and even Antarctica.
Tell us about one project that has been particularly impactful in your field.
During a Southern Ocean field campaign during graduate school, I collected one of the first datasets of both ice nucleating particles and airborne bacterial DNA. The Southern Ocean atmosphere had previously been suggested to be one of the last pristine atmospheric regions and thus could be used as a proxy for preindustrial aerosol conditions. This is important, because estimates of aerosol climate forcing, both current and in future simulations, are dependent on accurate estimates of preindustrial conditions and currently have large uncertainties. Led by a postdoc in my lab, we published a paper that used the DNA measurements to confirm this hypothesis. Our findings were picked up by several news outlets, and I had the opportunity to write a piece for The Conversation describing our results for a broad audience.
What is one space mission that you are particularly excited about, and why?
NASA’s Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) mission recently launched (early 2024), and is unique in its dual focus on measurements of both the surface ocean and atmosphere. In addition to continuing historical satellite measurements of ocean color, atmospheric aerosols, and clouds, PACE is providing the first measurements of phytoplankton ecology from space, as well as novel measurements of atmospheric aerosols and clouds using polarimetry. PACE has two polarimeters on-board, SPEXone and HARP2, which measure not only the intensity, but also the polarization (orientation) of the light. Wavelength-resolved polarization measurements will allow us to classify aerosols into different categories (such as dust, smoke, sea spray, etc) with more accuracy than prior satellite missions, which is important for understanding how they interact with clouds and radiation.
What early career advice do you have for those looking to do what you do?
My main piece of advice would be to try and say “yes” to as many opportunities as you can, even if they take you away from your current path. All the most influential moments in my career so far have come from taking a chance on something new: a new research field, new country, even leaving a job early to go to Antarctica! Some of these opportunities come from luck (right place, right time), some from asking your peers or mentors, or even from newsletters or listservs. Attend conference sessions outside of your discipline, be willing to network, and follow up with people you meet that are doing interesting things. Every new opportunity will teach you something (even if it’s that you don’t like it!) and lead you on to the next step.
Tell us about a unique or interesting component of your work-life balance.
I adopted my first dog during graduate school, and he has been a wonderful outdoor companion on my hiking, snowshoeing and backpacking adventures. Being a responsible dog-parent has turned out to be helpful for setting boundaries on my time at work, and I miss my enforced time outside with him when I’m traveling. During the pandemic, I got very into dog training and now compete with him in several dog sports. I love having this new community entirely separate from work, with the bonus that I also get to meet a lot of cute, sweet, dogs.
Published Date: Jan 30, 2026.
Hometown:
Vienna, VA
Undergraduate Degree:
B.A. Chemistry, Colby College, Waterville, ME
Post-graduate Degree:
M.S. and Ph.D. Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA