ASR Scientist Plans to Use DOE Early Career Award to Study Thunderstorms

Congratulations to Atmospheric System Research (ASR) scientist Jiwen Fan for receiving a 2017 Early Career Research Program award from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
Fan, an atmospheric scientist and ASR scientific focus area member at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will use the award to study severe thunderstorms in the central United States. She is one of 59 researchers from various fields nationwide to receive the award this year.
The award will fund Fan’s research on the formation and evolution of thunderstorms that produce large hail, damaging winds, tornadoes, and torrential rainfall. Drawing on powerful supercomputers managed by DOE, Fan will conduct an unprecedented close-up look at how drought, extreme rainfall, city growth, and distant wildfires help shape these storms. Her work will take into account data from the DOE Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Facility’s Southern Great Plains atmospheric observatory and other sources, such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Fan’s research has had ASR support for the past eight years. Her previous ASR research includes the physical understanding of arctic mixed-phase clouds and tropical deep convective clouds, and effects of atmospheric particles on convection and precipitation of deep convective clouds over the Tropical Western Pacific and Amazon regions.
The Early Career Research Program, now in its eighth year, is managed by the DOE Office of Science and awards research grants to young scientists and engineers at U.S. universities and national laboratories. The grants are designed to bolster the nation’s scientific workforce by providing support to exceptional researchers during the crucial early years of their careers.
Fan will receive $2.5 million over the next five years to further her research. The funds will support Fan and several postdoctoral research associates.
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This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research as part of the Atmospheric System Research Program.