Peter Marinescu and Faith Groff earn student honors at AMS conference

Ph.D. candidate Peter Marinescu and M.S. student Faith Groff took top student honors at the 18th AMS Mesoscale Processes Conference in Savannah, Georgia.

Marinescu, advised by Professor Sue van den Heever and University Distinguished Professor Sonia Kreidenweis, was awarded first place for his poster based on the results from a model intercomparison study involving different research groups from around the world. The groups simulated the same case study in order to quantify and understand the range of cloud responses to increased aerosol concentrations within the different models.

“Ultimately, these results will help us, as a community, understand where some of the largest uncertainties are in simulating the impacts of aerosol particles in deep convective clouds,” Marinescu said. “It was a great experience to share and get feedback on this work at the AMS Mesoscale Conference.”

Groff, advised by Associate Professor Russ Schumacher, won second place for her presentation highlighting how gravity wave generation, strength and propagation can change within different realistic environments.

“I feel very honored to have been chosen for the award, and it gave me a great boost of confidence going into my master’s thesis defense,” Groff said. “I’m very much looking forward to sharing these findings as well as other results with the department at my defense in October.”