Kevin Yang and Ting-Yu Cha receive department honors for student research

Kevin Yang and Ting-Yu Cha were honored for outstanding student research in a ceremony May 6. Yang received the Herbert Riehl Memorial Award, and Cha received the Alumni Award.

Associate Professor Christine Chiu, Yang’s adviser, nominated him for the paper, “Near-cloud aerosol retrieval using machine learning techniques, and implied direct radiative effects,” which she expects will have a huge scientific impact.

“As a supervisor, the goals I set for myself are to train my students to have original ideas, to tackle the problem in a creative way, and to do their research independently. And this student has demonstrated all of these three from day one,” Chiu said in her introduction before revealing Yang as the winner.

The Herbert Riehl Memorial Award honors the department’s founder. It recognizes an M.S. or beginning Ph.D. student who has submitted the best technical manuscript in the past 18 months.

The Alumni Award recognizes outstanding Ph.D. research by a senior student.

Professor Michael Bell, Cha’s adviser, nominated her for the paper, “Polygonal Eyewall Asymmetries During the Rapid Intensification of Hurricane Michael (2018).”

“This was outstanding work both in terms of observational analysis and theoretical analysis,” Bell said.

Cha’s paper was selected as an Editors’ Highlight by Geophysical Research Letters and earned her third place in the Peter B. Wagner Memorial Award for Women in Atmospheric Sciences competition.

Cha will participate in the PRECIP campaign in Taiwan this summer. Following her graduation in the fall, she will continue her research at the National Center for Atmospheric Research through an Advanced Study Program Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Yang and Cha will present their research at the first colloquium of fall semester.