Contact Information
1301 W. Green St.
Urbana, IL 61801
Biography
I grew up in Lichuan, a small town in Jiangxi Province in southeast China. It's a hilly area, and Wuyi Mountain, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, lies close. I spent six years, from K6 to K12, in Lichuan No.2 Middle School.
After graduating from high school, I went to Northwest A&F university to study hydrology. The university locates in Xi'an, one of the Chinese great ancient capitals. Xi'an was chosen as the capital by many dynasties throughout China's golden age, including the Qin (221 BC - 206 BC), Han (202 BC - 220 AD), and Tang (618 AD- 907 AD). In 2013, I enrolled in the master program in the department of earth system science at Tsinghua University in Beijing. I worked with Prof. Yuxuan Wang to study particulate matter issues using the global chemical transport model GEOS-Chem. In 2016, I joined the department of atmospheric science at UIUC to work with Prof. Nicole Riemer.
Research Interests
- Aerosol physics and chemistry
- Aerosol-cloud interaction
Research Description
Aerosol cloud interaction plays an important role in global radiative forcing. Particles can change the incoming solar radiation directly by scattering or absorbing it. Acting as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), particles can also change the climate indirectly by forming clouds. On the other hand, clouds provide an efficient medium for chemical and physical processes to happen, thus changing the size and components of particles. My research focuses on using a particle-resolved model to track the physical and chemical changes of the particle population during cloud processing and quantify the role of the aerosol mixing state in determining its optical properties.
Education
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA, 2016-2021
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, 2013-2016
Northwest A&F university, Xi'an, China 2009-2013
Courses Taught
Computing and data analysis, Spring & Fall 2020
Recent Publications
Yao, Y., Curtis, J., Ching, J., Zheng, Z., and Riemer, N. : Quantifying the effects of mixing state on aerosol optical properties, Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss. [preprint], https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-2022-131, in review, 2022.
Yao, Y., Dawson, M. L., Dabdub, D., & Riemer, N. (2021). Evaluating the Impacts of Cloud Processing on Resuspended Aerosol Particles After Cloud Evaporation Using a Particle Resolved Model. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 126(24), e2021JD034992
Nandy, L., Yao, Y., Zheng, Z., & Riemer, N. (2021). Water uptake and optical properties of mixed organic-inorganic particles. Aerosol Science and Technology, 1- 16.
Zheng, Z., Curtis, J. H., Yao, Y., Gasparik, J. T., Anantharaj, V. G., Zhao, L., Riemer, N. (2020). Estimating Submicron Aerosol Mixing State at the Global Scale with Machine Learning and Earth System Modeling, Earth and space science, 8, e2020EA001500