Faculty, students, and scientists in the UMBC Atmospheric Physics (ATPH) graduate program perform research in a number of areas in collaboration with affiliated and adjunct faculty from NASA and NOAA.

This research is conducted by members of the physics department in the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET), and by members of the closely-related Goddard Earth Sciences and Technology Center (GEST) who mainly work at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) 25 miles south of the campus in Greenbelt, Maryland. There are numerous research opportunities in atmospheric physics for both graduate and undergraduate students at UMBC.

Faculty research areas include infrared, visible and ultraviolet measurements of gases and aerosols in the atmosphere using both passive and active remote sensing systems.  Tenured and tenure-track faculty are science team members on a number of NASA and NOAA missions including AIRS, CALIPSO, GLORY, MODIS, and GOES-R. Instrument specializations of the faculty include atmospheric lidar, infrared spectroscopy, and fundamental aerosol microphysical techniques.  The research in the atmospheric physics group also includes some new efforts in the areas of hurricane modeling and modeling of low-level winds with applications to PBL/pollution studies.  As a result of strong Center contributions, UMBC has recently been recognized as the #2 university in the US in 2006 in NASA university grant funding.  UMBC also has recently been recognized as being the #3 university in the country from 2001-2006 in terms of citations in the geosciences.  The UMBC Atmospheric Physics program has contributed significantly to that recognition.In addition to 5 tenured/tenure-track faculty, there are 10 faculty affiliated with the Physics Department through JCET, an additional 9 JCET faculty affiliated in other departments on campus, 119 faculty in GEST, and 3 adjunct faculty (one each from NASA Goddard, NOAA NESDIS, and Howard University).  Typically, half of the Atmospheric Physics graduate students are supported by affiliated or adjunct research faculty.

For more information, please visit webpages for the individual Atmospheric Physics research groups, the Atmospheric Physics Graduate Program webpage, and the webpages for JCET and GEST.

Faculty with Research Interests in Atmospheric Physics

• Air-Quality and Cloud Physics
  Dr. Hoff
  Dr. Martins
  Dr. Strow
  Dr. Zhang
• Atmospheric Dynamics
  Dr. Sparling
• Remote Sensing
  Dr. Hoff
  Dr. Martins
  Dr. Strow
  Dr. Zhang