Anna M. Michalak - Students

Prof. ANNA M. MICHALAK

University of Michigan
College of Engineering
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences

	CURRENT MEMBERS OF RESEARCH GROUP


			Deborah Huntzinger Postdoctoral fellow Research interests: Comparison of "bottom-up" and "top-down" estimates of carbon flux in North America, including the examination of the spatial variability and uncertainty in flux estimates obtained from existing biospheric models. Contact: dnhuntzi [at] umich [dot] edu Research webpage


			Vineet Yadav Postdoctoral fellow Research Interests: My academic focus lies at the intersection of carbon dynamics, land cover and climate change. Methodologically, I employ remote sensing, GIS and statistical modeling to investigate my research problems. In the past, I have concentrated on research projects on biospheric modeling of historical soil organic carbon transformations and developing a decision support database for "cap and trade" agricultural C market systems. Presently, as a post-doctoral fellow I am involved in a NASA-funded North American Carbon Program project. Under the aegis of this project, I am contributing in improving understanding of the spatial and temporal variations of the North American carbon fluxes at multiple scales. Contact: vineety [at] umich [dot] edu


			Abhishek Chatterjee Ph.D. Pre-candidate Research Interests: Improving the knowledge of spatio-temporal variability of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere using measurements from remote sensing platforms; Determining geostatitical data assimilation and inverse modeling techniques to assess the role of terrestrial and oceanic ecosystems in the global carbon cycle; Understanding the effects of aerosols and clouds on the carbon cycle, especially on carbon uptake in terrestrial ecosystems; Improving the treatment and understanding of econometrics in the context of global warming. Contact: abhishch [at] umich [dot] edu Research webpage


			Sharon Gourdji Ph.D. Candidate Research Interests: Carbon dioxide flux estimation: Using geostatistical inverse modeling to estimate carbon sources and sinks at global and regional (North America) scales. Attributing components of CO₂ flux to various processes (photosynthesis, respiration, biomass burning, fossil fuels, etc.). Climate change policy: How to better integrate scientific knowledge production into the policy-making process, specifically in the field of climate change mitigation and adaptation. Contact: sgourdji [at] umich [dot] edu Research webpage


			Dorit Hammerling Ph.D. Pre-candidate Research Interests: Application, modification and development of statistical methods for environmental problems. I am currently working on evaluating the relevance of time as an additional dimension in spatial models applied to CO₂retrieved from satellites. Contact: doritmh [at] umich [dot] edu


			Kim Mueller Ph.D. Candidate Research Interests: Kim's research interests are focused on using geostatistical techniques to evaluate biospheric and climatic influences on carbon dioxide fluxes to further the general knowledge of the carbon cycle and to assist terrestrial carbon budgeting. Geostatistical techniques include kriging with a variable trend using CO₂ eddy flux measurements and inversion that couples atmospheric concentration data with an atmospheric transport model. Both techniques allow for the inclusion of various climatic and/or vegetative variables. As such, it is possible to study relationships between climatic or vegetative variables and carbon dioxide flux at various spatio-temporal scales as seen by the measurement information. As part of NSFâ€™s Biosphere Atmosphere Research & Training (BART) IGERT program, Kim's research uses data from the University of Michigan Biological Station Flux Tower Site in northern lower Michigan. Inverse modeling will be part of a project funded through the NASA North American Carbon Program as well as the BART fellowship. Contact: kimlm [at] umich [dot] edu Research webpage


			Yuntao Zhou Ph.D. Pre-candidate Research Interests: Geostatistical approaches to downscaling to uniform spatial or temporal scale levels and assimilating data at different physical scales in the same domain by accounting for mathematical and physical relationships; Merging the satellite data and the in-situ data to provide more accurate estimation of the hypoxia spatial and temporal extent in aquatic ecosystem. Contact: ytzhou [at] umich [dot] edu Research webpage


			Jill Ostrowski M.S. Candidate, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research Interests: I am interested in advancing water monitoring and modeling capabilities. My research is focused on improving groundwater contamination historical release estimation methods. Rarely are the parameters that define subsurface transport fully known in field applications. I am working towards incorporating transport parameter uncertainty into a geostatistical inverse model to estimate when it was most likely contamination was released. I am also involved with a national scale project that aims to improve water quality prediction and forecasting. Defining the current state of the science is necessary to identify areas of improvement; this has been my role to date. Contact: ojill [at] umich [dot] edu


			David Sena M.S. Candidate, School of Natural Resources and Environment Research Interests: My research interests lie in understanding how water quality models and uncertainty analysis can be used to inform the design of water quality monitoring networks at the continental scale. Contact: dsena [at] umich [dot] edu


			Yoichi Shiga M.S. Candidate, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Contact: yshiga [at] umich [dot] edu


			Christopher Baik Sophomore, Computer Science and Engineering Research Interests: To be able to program algorithms to quantify and analyze global climate change in terms of carbon dioxide. Contact: cjbaik [at] umich [dot] edu


			Sophie Christian Junior, Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering Research Interests: My research interests include global and regional climate change trends, their causes and effects, and what can be done to predict and alleviate these effects. My current research interests include studying global CO₂ concentrations in order to identify possible sources and sinks of carbon in the atmosphere. Energy policy, sustainable and renewable energy sources, and energy efficiency are also areas of great interest to me. Contact: sophielc [at] umich [dot] edu


			Landon Smith Sophomore, College of Engineering Research Interests: Landon's research interests lie mainly in computer programming, and more generally in any field of math and science. He is currently working on a project to determine CO₂ surface sources and sinks using satellite data through the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program. Contact: smilando [at] umich [dot] edu



	RESEARCH GROUP ALUMNI


			Alanood Alkhaled Ph.D. Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2009 Dissertation: Remote sensing of CO2: Geostatistical tools for assessing spatial variability, quantifying representation errors, and gap-filling Contact: alanood [at] umich [dot] edu Research webpage


			Shahar Shlomi Ph.D. Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2009 Dissertation: Combining geostatistical analysis and flow-and-transport models to improve groundwater contaminant plume estimation Contact: shaharsh [at] umich [dot] edu Research webpage


			Meng-Ying Li Ph.D., Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2008 Dissertation: The M-Scale Model: A multi-scale model for decision support of on-site remediation Contact: mengyl [at] umich [dot] edu


			Jill Ostrowski B.S. Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2007 Research group member: May 2007 - February 2008 Contact: ojill [at] umich [dot] edu


			Miranda (Katie) Malkin B.S., University of Michigan, 2008 Research group member: January - December, 2005 Contact: msmalkin [at] umich [dot] edu


			Charles Humphriss B.S. Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2006 Research group member: Summer 2005 Contact: chumphri [at] umich [dot] edu


	Last modified: 06/22/09 by Anna M. Michalak

CURRENT MEMBERS OF RESEARCH GROUP

RESEARCH GROUP ALUMNI