I'm currently a NOAA C&GC postdoctoral fellow working with Prof. James Randerson in the Department of Earth System Science at the University of California, Irvine. My current research focuses on mapping the satellite-derived progression of wildfires in the western United States, investigating the climate and active fire suppression controls on fire spread, and quantifying related air quality and public health impacts. During my Ph.D. in the Atmospheric Chemistry Modeling Group at Harvard University, my research focused on 1) investigating trends in the timing and magnitude of crop residue burning in northwestern India (Punjab and Haryana), as well as the drivers and air quality consequences of these shifts; 2) quantifying smoke exposure and public health impacts associated with fire emissions in Indonesia; and 3) assessing satellite-derived fire-related smoke in North America. I use a combination of remote sensing, GIS, statistics, and atmospheric modeling with both ground-based and satellite-derived datasets. In the past, I worked at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on a variety of topics from physical oceanography to paleoceanography to organic biogeochemistry: 1) identifying autumn-lead global sea surface salinity predictors for prediction of winter precipitation in southwestern United States; 2) reconstructing the strength of the biological pump with carbon isotopes of benthic and planktonic foraminifera in the North Pacific in the last 600,000 years; and 3) reconstructing the late Holocene paleoclimate and paleo-vegetation of Middleton Island, Alaska with with n-alkane distributions and hydrogen isotopes. In my spare time, I enjoy poetry, photography, TV/movie/game soundtracks, basketball, ceramics, chess puzzles, and crime dramas.
Latest News
Conferences/Events
American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting 2022
December 12-16, 2022 at McCormick Place Convention Center, Chicago, IL
This year, I will co-convene session A34B/35J/42B/43A Aerosols and Air Quality over South and Southeast Asia: Observations, Modeling, and Impacts (Oral I, Oral II, Posters). I will present a talk on "Cascading delays in the monsoon rice growing season and post-monsoon agricultural fires likely exacerbate air pollution in North India" on Friday afternoon, December 16 (B56D-06: abstract) and a poster on "Assessment of digitized satellite wildfire smoke plumes with airport observations across the contiguous United States and Alaska from 2008-2021" on Thursday morning, December 15 (GH42A-25: abstract).
Papers/Writing
Air quality impacts of crop residue burning in India and mitigation alternatives
November 14, 2021
Ruoyu Lan's paper is published in Nature Communications (main + SI)!
Google Earth Engine Book
October 6, 2022
The Google Earth Engine open-access book, "Cloud-Based Remote Sensing with Google Earth Engine" is now available here. Morgan Crowley and I contributed a chapter on active fire monitoring (A3.1)!
Chemical characterization and source apportionment of organic aerosols in the coastal city of Chennai, India: Impact of marine air masses on aerosol chemical composition and potential for SOA formation
October 14, 2021
Snehitha Kommula's paper is published in ACS: Earth and Space Chemistry (main + SI)!