Congratulations to Jianyu (Kevin) Zheng and Neranga Kaluappuwa Hannadige, who defended their dissertations on November 10 and 9, 2023, respectively! Both were Ph.D. candidates in the Atmospheric Physics Program of the Physics Department at UMBC, and both are Graduate Research Assistants with GESTAR II. 

Dr. Zheng's dissertation was titled "Characteristics of dust and aerosol properties using CALIOP and thermal infrared satellite observations," and his advisor was Dr. Zhibo Zhang (UMBC). He will be working as a postdoctoral research assistant in GESTAR II with Dr. Zhang and Dr. Hongbin Yu (NASA GSFC).

Dr. Hannadige's dissertation was titled "Remote Sensing of Aerosols and Ocean Color with Multi-Angle Polarimeters and Spectro-Radiometers," and her advisor was Dr. Pengwang Zhai (UMBC).  She will be working as a postdoctoral research assistant at SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, working on aerosol remote sensing  from the SPEXone instrument on the NASA PACE mission. She also had been awarded a GESTAR II fellowship from 2022-2023. 

Photo: Jianyu Zheng (3rd from left) with his Ph.D. committee (left to right): Dr. Hongbin Yu, Dr. Belay Demoz (UMBC), Dr. Anne Garnier (LATMOS, Paris), Dr. Zhibo Zhang, Dr. Sergio DeSouza-Machado (UMBC), and Dr. Pengwang Zhai (UMBC). (Provided by B. Demoz.)

Photo: Neranga Kaluappuwa Hannadige celebrating the completion of her doctoral degree. (Provided by Z. Zhang.)