Fan is an atmospheric modeler at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory specializing in the fields of aerosols, clouds, and climate, and her work focuses on untangling the relationships between the three. Specifically, she has made significant contributions to the understanding of how aerosol particles impact storm (deep convective) clouds, which is one of the most difficult and complicated climate problems. She has been supported by ASR for the past six years. Her current ASR work includes a study on clouds and aerosols in a squall line case and looking at the impact of aerosols over the Amazon Rainforest.
Despite just meeting the Ascent Award’s minimum seniority requirement of eight years postdoctoral, Fan already has 50 peer-reviewed publications, with an average of 24.7 citations per article.
“Fan has uncovered a rich variety of complex processes that contribute to the role of aerosols and clouds in the climate system,” said Dr. Steven Ghan, fellow ASR scientist and Cloud-Aerosol-Precipitation Interactions working group co-chair.
With over 62,000 members, AGU is the largest professional organization dedicated to geophysics. Within AGU, the atmospheric sciences section is made up of members who are concerned with climate change, atmospheric chemistry, dynamics, radiative transfer, and other processes that affect the atmosphere.
Fan received a Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University in 2007. She has won numerous awards, including the 2014 Ronald L. Brodzinsky Award and a National Aeronautics and Space Administration Earth Systems Science Fellowship from 2004-2007. She served on the AGU publication committee for two terms and is chair of the American Meteorological Society’s chemistry committee.
This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, through the Biological and Environmental Research program as part of the Atmospheric System Research program.