Welcome to the Land, Aerosol, and Cloud Interactions (LACI) Group! We are led by Dr. Gabrielle "Bee" Leung at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Human activities impact the atmosphere in many different ways, including changing aerosol emissions, land surface properties, and the background thermodynamic environment. Our research explores where and when those anthropogenic changes are most important for clouds and precipitation.
We use a combination of satellite data, field observations, and cloud-resolving models in our research. Read more about the tools we use here.
Learn more about our current projects here or click the icons below to learn more about our areas of interest!
news
- This is my first day at the University of Wisconsin - Madison! I'm looking forward to setting up my research group and enjoying the last weeks of a beautiful Madison summer.
- I'm in Lewiston, Maine this week for the Climate and Radiation Gordon Research Conference. I'll be giving a talk on varied cloud responses to deforestation across the diurnal cycle, and a poster on how grid spacing impacts the relationship between environmental moisture and convective mass flux.
- I was chosen for the Maria Silva Dias award. The Silva Dias award is given annually by the CSU Atmospheric Science department to a senior PhD student for outstanding research. I'm very honored to win this prize for my work on deforestation impacts on clouds over Southeast Asia, especially since Maria Silva Dias did a lot of pioneering work on mesoscale meteorology and deforestation in the Amazon!
- Today, I successfully defended my PhD dissertation, entitled 'Aerosol and Land Surface Impacts on Tropical Convective Processes'.
- I just accepted a faculty position at the University of Wisconsin–Madison Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. I'm moving to Madison in August 2025 to be an Anna Julia Cooper postdoctoral fellow while I set up my research group before starting my tenure-track Assistant Professor position in Fall 2026.
- It's been a busy conference season! This week, I'm in New Orleans for AMS. I'm presenting my work on resolving convective mass flux at sub-kilometer grid spacings, done as part of the NASA INCUS mission.
- I'm at AGU this week, presenting my work on how deforestation impacts different cloud modes in the tropics. I'm also speaking at the NASA Early Career Program Townhall on Thursday night. Looking forward to seeing new research and catching up with old friends!
- The annual INCUS science team meeting is this week. I'm going to talk about tracking cloud objects in our high-resolution INCUS simulations and comparing how convective mass flux is resolved at kilometer and sub-kilometer grid spacings.
- Colorado Senator John Hickenlooper visited the CSU Department of Atmospheric Science today. I led a team that demonstrated our work with radiosondes and drones.
- I'm in Jeju, South Korea this week to attend the International Conference on Clouds and Precipitation. I'll be presenting some new work using object-tracking to characterize convective mass flux in the INCUS large eddy simulation dataset.