Hello and welcome to the homepage of Professor Sue van den Heever's
research group. Our research focuses on cloud processes, specifically the microphysical and dynamical
characteristics of deep convective cloud systems, aerosol-cloud feedbacks, convective organization and
the representation of these processes in numerical models. More detailed information on the scientific
questions we are currently addressing can be found on our
research webpage and from our publications
publications. We use numerical models
to achieve our scientific goals, in particular the open source
Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS)
that is now developed and maintained by the van den Heever research group. We also utilize
satellite and radar data to conduct our research, and numerous members of our research group
have participated in a number of field campaigns. Our group, together with students from the Schumacher, Schubert, Rasmussen and Rutledge groups, recently completed C3LOUD-Ex, a field campaign to investigate updraft and cold pool
characteristics of convective storms over NE Colorado. The field campaign utilized drones, radiosondes and radar data from the CSU-CHILL facility to address the campaign science goals and was recently described in the Colorado State University Magazine and on SOURCE.
Recent News
2019
April 2: Congratulations to Peter who was awarded a CSU Graduate Student Council Travel Grant! Peter will be attending the 2019 Aerosol, Cloud, Precipitation, and Climate Working Group (ACPC) meeting in Nanjing, China from April 24-26. More information about ACPC and the upcomming conference can be found on their website.
March 29: Jennie and Sean volunteer with a class visit from Altitude Elementary in the department, showcasing a drone and describing how we observe the weather and improve our scientific knowledge of the atmosphere with drones to over 100 second graders. A full writeup of the day can be found on the department website.
The van den Heever group at Little Shop of Physics 2019: (from far left) Jennie and Aryeh discussing our use of drones in atmospheric science with members of the community.
March 5-7: Sean and Sue present at the CAMP2Ex Science Team Meeting. The CAMP2Ex field campaign, scheduled to take place in August and September, is a NASA-sponsonred field campaign based out of the Philippine island of Luzon. The field campaign is designed to measure aerosol, cloud processes, and radiation from the NASA P-3 aircraft. During the field campaign, Alex and Sean will operate the dropsonde system aboard the P-3 aircraft and Sue will serve as a flight scientist, all spending substantial time in Luzon. More information can be found on the CAMP2Ex website.
February 25-28: Leah presents at the 2019 Understanding Clouds and Precipitation conference in Berlin.
February 23: Alex, Aryeh, Jennie, and Sean volunteer at the CSU Little Shop of Physics Open House with equipment from C3LOUD-Ex. Little Shop of Physics is an event targeted at introducing elementary through high school students to Physics and physical sciences, hosted by CSU yearly.
January 17: Kristen Tucker joins our group as a MS student. She joins us from the University of Wyoming and is in the Rutledge and van den Heever groups. Welcome Kristen!
2018
December 10-14: Aryeh, Ben, Jennie, Leah, Minnie, Sean, Stacey, Steve, and Sue present at the AGU Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. Leah gives her first invited presentation, congratulations Leah!
November 12: Congratulations to Ben for defending his Masters thesis entitled "Interactions Between the Madden-Julian Oscillation and Mesoscale to Global Scale Phenomena".
November 9: Stacey is hired at WeatherFlow. We'll miss you Stacey!
October 25: Sue is appointed as co-chair of NASA's Aerosol and Clouds, Convection, and Precipitation (A-CCP) Science Advisory Group, which was written up on the department website. Congratulations Sue!
October 18: Ben returns to Colorado after completing his cruise on the PISTON field campaign. Welcome back Ben!
October 12: Congratulations to Sue for being elected as Secretary of Physics, Dynamics, and Climate for the American Geophysical Union Atmospheric Sciences section for 2019-2020. Sue will begin her term in December at the AGU annual meeting. More information can be found on the department website here.
October 11: Congratulations to Sean for defending his Masters thesis entitled "Assessing the Impacts of Microphysical and Environmental Controls on Simulated Supercell Storms".
September 6: Ben leaves for Palau to participate in the Propagation of Intra-Seasonal Oscillations field campaign. While on the campaign, Ben will be aboard the R/V Roger Revelle in the Pacific Ocean launching soundings from the ship. The goals of the PISTON campaign are to examine the roles of localized features in influencing large-scale intraseasonal oscillations and examining variability in intraseasonal oscillations. More information can be found on the PISTON website.
August 21: Yasutaka Murakami joins our group as a MS student. He joins us from the Japanese Meteorological Agency and is co-advised by Chris Kummerow. Welcome Yasutaka!
August 10: Congratulations to Jennie, Leah, and Peter for being on the CSU Atmospheric Cyclists Bike to Work challenge team, which won the Bike to Work challenge this summer! Jennie, Leah, and Peter joined 38 others from the Department of Atmospheric Science and CIRA to bike 7,367 miles this summer. More information can be found on the department website here.
August 6: Alex Sokolowsky joins our group as a PhD student. He joins us from Pennsylvania State University, where he received his MS. Welcome Alex!
July 14-20 Minnie participates in the Second Department of Energy Advanced Radiation Measurement Summer Training and Science Applications event on Observations and Modeling of Clouds and Precipitation. Minnie spent the week working as part of the "Boundary Layer Cloud Group" investigating "Boundary Layer Structure during Different Cloud Conditions at the ARM Eastern North Atlantic Site". More information about the program can be found here.
July 9-13 Sean and Peter present at the 2018 American Meteorological Society Cloud Physics and Radiation Conference in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Sean at ASP Summer Colloquium 2018: As part of the program, Sean visited the NEON instruments atop Niwot Ridge. Pictured here is Sean at 11,500 ft in front of an instrumented tower
June 4-15 Sean participates in this year's NCAR Advanced Study Program Summer Colloquium, entitled "Synthesis of Observations and Models in Studies of Shallow and Deep Clouds". Sean spent the two weeks learning and understanding how to use data from the CSET aircraft field campaign and comparing that data to CAM6.
April 20: Congratulations to Ben who won an Oustanding Poster Presentation Award at the 33rd AMS Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology in Ponte Vidra, FL. Ben won for his poster entitled "A Coherent Image of Teleconnections Across the Globe Associated with the Madden-Julian Oscillation". More information can be found on the ATS Department Homepage.
April 17: Congratulations to Minnie who was selected to participate in this year's Department of Energy Advanced Radiation Measurement (DOE ARM) Summer Training Event. Minnie will spend a week at the ARM Southern Great Plains site in Oklahoma where she will learn about instrumentation used to observe the atmosphere..
April 16-20: Aryeh, Ben, and Emily present at the 2018 American Meteorological Society Tropical Conference in Ponte Vedra, FL.
Little Shop of Physics 2018: Minnie (rear, in green) discusses how we observe our atmosphere with drones and weather balloons at the CSU Lory Student Center to elementary school students.
April 10: Congratulations to Sean who was selected to participate in this year's NCAR Advanced Study Program Summer Colloquium. Sean will spend two weeks studying at NCAR in June on "Synthesis of Observations and Models in Studies of Shallow and Deep Clouds". More information on the program can be found here.
February 26: Sean, Minnie, Jennie, and Aryeh participated in various outreach activities this weekend with equipment from C3LOUD-Ex. Sean and Minnie went to Rice Elementary's Science Night on Friday February 23 in Wellington, CO, showcasing one of our drones and other weather observation equipment to elementary school students. On Saturday, Aryeh, Jennie, Minnie, and Sean participated in CSU's Little Shop of Physics open house, volunteering in the atmospheric science room. Here, we showed the students (elementary to middle school) and their parents how we collected observations of storms in the field and demonstrated why STEM education is important.
February 20: Sue participates in a panel discussion at the CSU Africa Center entitled "Innovations out of Africa: Technology" discussing the use of technology (including drones and 3D printed weather stations) to improve atmospheric understanding in continental Africa. The panel was written up in the Rocky Mountain Collegianhere.
February 1: Congratulations to Minnie and Peter for winning the student presentation competetion for best oral presentations at the 2018 American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting Aerosol-Cloud-Climate Symposium. Minnie won for her presentation "Dependence of Aerosol Transport on Meteorological and Surface Properties within Tropical Sea Breeze Convection", and the recorded presentation is found here. Peter won for his presentation "Comparing the Aerosol Impacts on Deep Convective Updraft Characteristics in Two Cloud-Resolving Models", and the recorded presentation is found here.
January 16: Congratulations to Aryeh who was named a Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering Graduate Teaching Fellow. Aryeh begins his teaching this semester, serving as a teaching assistant in a mechanical engineering class and completing an engineering education research project.
January 10: Congratulations to Sue for being awarded the American Meteorological Society Edward N. Lorenz Teaching Excellence Award. She is being honored "for enduring passion for teaching and mentoring, for engaging students both inside and outside of the classroom, and for unrelenting dedication to training future scientists." Sue was presented with her award at the annual meeting of the AMS in Austin, TX. More information can be found on the department website.
January 8-12: Aryeh, Jennie, Leah, Peter, Minnie, Sean, Steve, Stacey, and Sue present at the 2018 American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting in Austin, TX.
2017
Graduation Day 2017! From left: Dr. Sue van den Heever, ATS Senior Research Scientist Dr. Paul DeMott, ATS Graduate Dr. Christina McCluskey, and Dr. Leah Grant
December 15: Graduation Day 2017! Dr. Leah Grant graduates with her PhD, pictured to the left. Dr. Grant will continue in our group as a postdoctoral fellow.
December 11-15: Ben and Sue present research at the 2017 American Geophysical Union meeting in New Orleans, LA.
December 7: Congratulations to Leah Grant for defending her PhD Dissertation, titled "Cold Pool Processes in Different Environments".
December 1: Congratulations to Peter Marinescu for winning the the David L. Dietrich Honorary Scholarship. The Dietrich Scholarship is awared to a CSU student who has demonstrated outstanding ability in air quality research. Peter's award is highlighted on the Department Website
October 11: Sue presented some of the work done with drones from C3LOUD-Ex to a different audience: Teens! Sue, Jennie, and Sean went to the Teen Science Café and showcased some of our work to get young adults interested in science. This presentation was written up on the department webpage and in CSU's student newspaper, the Rocky Mountain Collegian.
October 2: Congratulations to Ben Toms for receiving a MAC Foundation travel grant! Ben will use his travel grant to go to the American Meteorological Society 2018 Tropical Conference.
August 30: PhD Student Peter Marinescu has been named the student member of the American Meteorological Society Committee on Mesoscale Processes. He will serve a two year term on the committee. Congratulations, Peter!
August 15: Our recent C3LOUD-Ex Field Campaign is highlighted in SOURCE, CSU's online news source.
Drone in flight during C3LOUD-Ex
August 2: Max Heikenfeld, a DPhil student in Philip Stier’s group at Oxford, joins us for the next few months to work with our group. Welcome, Max!
July 26: Congratulations to Sue for winning the 2018 American Meteorological Society Edward N. Lorenz Teaching Excellence Award. Her award citation was: "For enduring passion for teaching and mentoring, for engaging students both inside and outside the classroom, and for unrelenting dedication to training future scientists". The award will be presented to her at the 2018 AMS Annual Meeting in January. More information can be found on the department website.
July 10: Stacey Kawecki joins our group as a postdoctoral fellow. She joins us from the University of Michigan, where she received her PhD under the advisement of Allison Steiner. Welcome Stacey!
July 10: Congratulations to Sue for being named the Associate Department Head of Atmospheric Science. She will begin her new position in August.
June 19: Congratulations to Minnie Park for being selected for the NASA JPL Center for Climate Sciences Summer School! She will attend the sessions, this year focused on "Using Satellite Observations to Advance Climate Models" in late August. More information can be found here.
June 13: Our drones will be featured in the upcomming Colorado Weatherfest from 10 am to 2 pm on Saturday, June 24 at the CSU Atmospheric Science campus. More information can be found here.
May 1 - June 9: C3LOUD-Ex Phase 2 takes place, led by Monfort Professor Sue van den Heever. Visit the C3LOUD-Ex website.
May 5: Congratulations to Aryeh Drager for winning the Riehl award. The Riehl award is presented by the Department of Atmospheric Science for the best technical paper arising from MS research and submitted for publication in the referred literature during the previous 18 month period. Aryeh won the award for his paper titled "Characterising Convective Cold Pools". Congratulations Aryeh!
April 12: Ben Toms has been awarded a 2017 DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellowship. According to the Krell Institute, "the DOE CSGF provides outstanding benefits and opportunities to students pursuing doctoral degrees in fields that use high-performance computing to solve complex science and engineering problems." This is only the second DOE CSGF that has been awarded to an ATS student. A detailed description of Ben's award and proposed project can be found on the department's webpage here. Congratulations Ben on achieving this highly prestigious fellowship!
March 30: C3LOUD-Ex is written up in the CSU Magazine.
February 21: Congratulations to Ben Toms who was awarded first place in the Oral Presentation Category at the
33rd Conference on Environmental Information Processing Technologies at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the
American Meteorological Society (AMS) in Seattle.
January 23-26: Aryeh, Ben, Jennie, Minnie, Sue, and our 2016 CMMAP REU student Rachel Phinney all presented research at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) in Seattle.
2016
December 12-16: Peter, Steve Saleeby, and Sue all presented research at the 2016 American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting in San Francisco.
December 14: Congratulations to Sue, who was awarded her AGU ASCENT award at the 2016 AGU Fall Meeting.
Her award citation read "For fundamental advances to our understanding of the influence of microphysical processes on
atmospheric convection, and feedback processes". More details can be found here.
December 14: Welcome back to Leah, who returned from her NSF GROW travel with Todd Lane at the University of Melbourne in Australia.
November 21: Congratulations to Sue for being featured
on the US Department of Energy ARM news site for her AGU ASCENT award, which will be presented at the 2016 AGU fall meeting.
November 18: Congratulations to PhD Candidates Aryeh and Peter for passing their PhD preliminary exams.
November 11: Bethan White, the postdoctoral research assistant in Philip Stier's group at the University of Oxford who
has been visiting us for the past two months departs. We'll miss you, Bethan!
November 9: Steve Saleeby has been promoted to Senior Research Associate and Emily has been promoted to Research Associate I. Congratulations, Steve and Emily!
October 6: Congratulations to Aryeh and Peter for winning MAC Foundation travel grants! Peter will be traveling to the 2017 Aerosol, Cloud,
Precipitation, and Climate (ACPC) Working Group Meeting, and Aryeh will be traveling to the AMS 17th Conference on Mesoscale
Processes. Congratulations Aryeh and Peter!
September 22: Bethan White, a postdoctoral research assistant in Philip Stier's group at the University of Oxford, joins us
for the next two months. Welcome Bethan!
August 28: Leah leaves for her NSF GROW travel to work with Todd Lane at the University of Melbourne in Australia.
August 8: Jennie Bukowski joins our group. Before arriving, Jennie was awarded the CSU Atmospheric Science/CIRA Program of Research and Scholarly Excellence scholarship. Congratulations Jennie!
July 25-29: Adele, Sean, and Sue all presented research at the International Conference on Clouds and Precipitation.
July 10-24: C3LOUD-Ex phase 1 took place in Northeastern Colorado. More information about the Monfort-funded field campaign can be found here.
July 21: Aryeh successfully defended his Masters Thesis. Well done and congratulations, Aryeh!
July 1: Sue has been announced as one of the winners of the 2016 ASCENT award from the Atmospheric Sciences section of the AGU. Congratulations, Sue! More information about the award can be found here.
June 22: Adele has been appointed as an Assistant Professor and Assistant Cloud Physicist in the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources at the University of California, Davis. Congratulations, Adele!
June 2: Ben has arrived to start research over the summer before classes start in the fall. Welcome to the group, Ben!
Rachel Phinney
May 23: Rachel Phinney, an undergraduate from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, is here for the summer to work with Peter on MCS research as part of the ESMEI REU program. Welcome, Rachel!
May 26: Leah has been awarded a GROW travel award! With this award, Leah will spend three months at the University of Melbourne working with Todd Lane on cold pools and characteristics of tropical convection. Congratulations, Leah!
Amanda (left) and Adele (right) in their caps, gowns, and hoods after graduation.
May 13: Graduation Day! Congratulations to Amanda, Peter, Michal, and Adele for completing their degrees. Amanda and Adele attended the graduation ceremony on campus and were officially hooded.
May 6: Leah was honored today with the Alumni Award for best paper by a PhD student. Leah is the third student in the history of the department to win both the Riehl and Alumni Awards. Congratulations, Leah!
April 27: Ben has been awarded an AMS Graduate Fellowship. Congratulations, Ben! Read more here.
March 15: Emily received a 2015 Editors' Citation for Excellence in Refereeing from JGR-Atmospheres. Great job, Emily! See the full story here.
February 23: Peter successfully defended his Masters Thesis. Well done and congratulations, Peter!
February 15: Leah presented her cold pool research at the HD(CP)2 conference in Berlin.
February 2: Peter was awarded an OSPA for his presentation at the AMS Annual Meeting. Congratulations, Peter!
January 6: Leah was awarded an OSPA (Outstanding Student Paper Award) for her presentation at the AGU Fall Meeting. Way to go, Leah!
December 14-18: Steve S., Leah, Michal, Adele, Peter, and Sue all presented research at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting.
December 10: Jungmin Park will be joining our group in January as a new PhD student. We all look forward to welcoming Jungmin to CSU and Fort Collins!
December 1: Adele has officially transitioned to a postdoc position within the group. Everyone is excited that she will be staying with the group for a bit longer!
November 20: Leah wins an early career travel grant to attend the HD(CP)2 Understanding Clouds and Precipitation Conference. Have fun in Berlin, Leah!
November 19: Michal successfully defends her dissertation to complete our trifecta of PhD defenses in the past month. Congratulations, Dr. Clavner!
November 10: Amanda passes her dissertation defense. Congratulations, Dr. Sheffield!
November 5: One of Sue's new projects which will look at aerosol properties and spatial distributions in coastal zones is featured by SOURCE. Read the story here.
November 4: Sean and four other first year atmospheric science graduate students are highlighted in SOURCE for winning five of nine AMS Graduate Fellowships. Read the story here. Congratulations to all the winners!
October 29: Adele successfully defends her PhD dissertation. Congratulations, Adele!
September 8: Leah's UDP award covered by SOURCE. Read the story here.
August 28: Sue wins the Professor of the Year award from the Department of Atmospheric Science. Congratulations, Sue!
August 18: Adele wins a travel grant from the IGBP to attend the AGU Fall Meeting. Congratulations, Adele!
August 17: Sean Freeman joins our group. Before arriving, Sean won both an AMS Graduate Fellowship and an NSF Graduate Fellowship. Welcome and congratulations, Sean!
August 17: Peter and Aryeh begin service as department Graduate Representatives.
August 14: Leah wins the CSU University Distinguished Professors scholarship! The award recognizes her outstanding graduate research record and potential for future leadership and comes with $10,000 to support her research and education. Only one student at CSU is selected to receive this award each year. Congratulations, Leah!
August 12: Adele's international research experience highlighted by SOURCE. Read the story here.
August 12: Josh's paper "Observed and modeled warm rainfall occurrence and its relationships with cloud macrophysical properties" published online by JAS.
August 11: Amanda's paper "Aerosol-induced mechanisms for cumulus congestus growth" in press at JGR.
August 3-7: Aryeh, Leah, and Michal give oral presentations at the AMS Mesoscale Conference which was co-organized this year by Sue. Leah and Adele win travel grants to support their attendance at the meeting.
July 1-10: Peter participates in the field campaign PECAN helping to collect data and launch weather balloons.
May 14: Matt's paper "The relative influence of environmental characteristics on tropical deep convective morphology as observed by CloudSat" is published by JGR.
April 17: Adele is awarded the Alumni Award by the Department of Atmospheric Science for the best published paper by a senior PhD student. Congratulations, Adele!
April 16: Sue named a Monfort Professor by CSU. This is the university's premier recognition of mid-career faculty and she will receive $75,000 per year for two years to further her teaching and research goals. Read more about the story on SOURCE. Congratulations, Sue!
April: Leah's paper "Cold pool and precipitation responses to aerosol loading: Modulation by dry layers" and Steve M.'s paper "Impacts of cloud droplet-nucleating aerosols on shallow tropical convection" are published by JAS.
March 1-May 30: Adele travels to Stockholm, Sweden to collaborate with Dr. Annica Ekman and colleagues on Arctic mixed-phase clouds. The research experience is funded through an NSF GROW award.
February: Adele's paper "Make it a double? Sobering results from simulations using single-moment microphysics schemes" is published by JAS.
January 9: Leah wins the outstanding student oral presentation award in the aerosol-cloud-climate interactions session of the AMS Annual Meeting. Renee Duff, Leah's undergraduate intern from summer 2014, wins the best student poster award at the AMS Annual Meeting Student Conference for her summer research. Congratulations, Leah and Renee!
January 5-9: Peter, Leah, Steve H., Michal, and Sue give presentations at the AMS Annual Meeting. Aryeh wins a travel grant to attend.
