Polar Meteorology : Who

Dr. David Bromwich
...is a Professor in the Department of Geography at OSU and a Senior Research Scientist at BPRC. His Bachelor of Science degree is from the University of Sydney, Australia, and his Master of Science degree in Meteorology is from the University of Melbourne, Australia. His doctorate was earned from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His special interests are in polar meteorology and climatology. He is a “Principal Investigator” (P.I.) on several grants and has several graduate students and post-doctoral students who work with him on unique projects.

Dr. Jason Box
...is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and a Research Scientist at BPRC. He is also interested in polar meteorology and climatology, and his most recent research has been to investigate the melt ponds (lakes) on the surface of the Greenland ice sheet. His undergraduate and graduate degrees are from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Dr. Box maintains his own webpage, which includes many photos and video clips of his work. He spent part of the summer of 2008 in Greenland.

Dr. Keith Hines
...is a Research Scientist at BPRC who grew up in California and earned his Bachelor’s degree in Meteorology from San Jose State University and his Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences from UCLA in 1992. His special interests are in modeling the regional features of the Polar Regions, and building in their global linkages, along with studying the development of weather fronts.

Dr. Sheng-Hung Wang
...is a Research Associate who earned his Bachelor’s degree in Atmospheric Science from Chinese Culture University in Taiwan, his Master’s degree in Atmospheric Science from the University of Missouri, and his Ph.D. from OSU. He specializes in the re-analysis of data sets (with more recent models) and in numerical weather prediction, which is based on model inputs and outputs.

Dr. Francis Otieno
...is a native of Siaya district in Kenya who recently joined the Polar Meteorology Group at BPRC. He earned his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Nairobi in Kenya, and then came to the United States where he earned his Master’s and Ph.D. degrees from Iowa State University. Dr. Otieno is a climate modeler who initially was studying droughts. He is interested in helping others to understand what the models can and cannot do, so he's working with some other people at BPRC to develop an online simulation that everyone will understand. For his dissertation he used a climate model to study droughts that occurred in North America 6000 years ago and has recently been using models to understand the onset of ice ages 115,000 years ago. Presently he is involved in a NASA funded project that will combine the use of models and satellite data to study cyclones over West Antarctica.

Dr. Taotao Qian
...is a new addition to the Polar Meteorology Group. She came to the U.S.A. in 1997, after having earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Nanjing University, in the People’s Republic of China. She earned her Ph.D. in Marine and Atmospheric Science from Stony Brook University, in New York. She was recently recognized for her contribution to one of the four main components of the Community Climate System Model (CCSM). She created a new comprehensive dataset for driving the Community Land Model. This work provided new insights to several areas of global climate change research. Taotao says that she most enjoys “the good working environment and chances to learn new things” in her job.

Le-Sheng Bai
...is a Research Associate at BPRC who earned his Bachelor’s and Master's degrees in Geophysics from Peking University, in China. He is especially interested in studying and analyzing the movement of air and using computers to predict weather. Le-Sheng has recently helped to develop...

Dr. Lei Yang
...is a Post-Doctoral Fellow who just completed a year of work at BPRC and departed for China, where she will begin a career as a cryospheric scientist (someone who studies ice). Her Bachelor’s, Master’s and Ph.D. degrees were all in Atmospheric Sciences, from Lanzhou University, Peking University, and The Ohio State University, respectively. After completing her dissertation, Lei used her talents for model development and data processing to contribute to the PMG efforts. She also traveled to Greenland where she assisted with the placement of an automated weather station at…

Dan Steinhoff
...is a Ph.D. student in atmospheric sciences, who obtained his Bachelors degree in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2003, and Masters degree in Atmospheric Sciences from OSU in 2008. He became interested in polar meteorology while working with Dr. David Bromwich on a project studying the severe windstorm that struck McMurdo Antarctica in May 2004. He traveled to McMurdo Station in December 2006 to work with weather forecasters there and learned about the challenges of modeling and forecasting the weather in Antarctica. His current work focuses on modeling the climate in the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica using the Polar Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF—pronounced like “wharf”).

Aaron Wilson
...is a graduate student who is just beginning his Master’s degree program in Atmospheric Sciences. He is working with Dr. Bromwich and Dr. Landis on a visualization project for the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium’s new Polar Frontier exhibit, which is scheduled to open in the fall of 2009. Aaron will create a program that can combine the information from the models of atmospheric conditions and sea surface temperatures in the Arctic region. This will be shown in the interpretive center in the Polar Frontier exhibit to show Zoo visitors the current conditions in the Arctic and what the models forecast for the next day or two.