People

Bio: After an initial career focused on polarization optics and time-resolved laser spectroscopy of biological molecules, Prof. Randall has spent 35 years working first on the Hubble Space Telescope and later on satellite missions devoted to examining the earth’s atmosphere. Her most recent research emphasizes the atmospheric effects of energetic particle precipitation, stratospheric ozone depletion, polar mesospheric clouds, gravity wave observations and satellite measurement validation. Cora was chair of the CU Boulder ATOC department for five years, has won a number of awards in recognition of her scientific contributions and service, and is an elected fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Bio: Dr. Harvey received her PhD in atmospheric and oceanic sciences from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 2001. Her scientific expertise is rooted in tropospheric meteorology and stratospheric dynamics. She has an extensive peer-reviewed publication record in stratosphere, mesosphere, and lower-thermosphere dynamics and atmosphere-ionosphere interactions, especially involving the wintertime polar vortex. Dr. Harvey has 20 years’ experience as PI on NASA and NSF research grants, and was a Co-I and Project Scientist for the Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) satellite mission.

Bio: Dr. Pettit is a postdoctoral scholar at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. He is a member of the GDC internal science team, as well as part of the Ionosphere/Thermosphere Modeling team at NASA’s Community Coordinated Modeling Center. His current work focuses on whole atmosphere model development, model coupling between the magnetosphere and the upper atmosphere, along with estimating impacts of solar radiative forcing and variability from high energy photons. While at LASP, Dr. Pettit developed a global electron flux data set using the MEPED instruments onboard NOAA’s Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellites (POES). The data set, which is referred to as the MEPED Precipitating Electron dataset or MPE dataset has received a lot of use since its release in 2021. The data products been used in a variety of studies ranging from atmospheric chemistry modeling experiments to comparisons with other satellites measuring electrons in low-Earth orbit.

Bio: Dr. Katelynn Greer is a scientist studying the near-space environment of Earth. In particular, she is interested how weather at Earth’s surface percolates up to the near-space region and impacts the composition of the air. She has worked on several NASA missions including GOLD, ICON, and GDC. She is an active member of the CEDAR community and was a panelist on the 2024 Decadal Survey Ionospheres-Thermospheres-Mesospheres panel.

Bio: Dr. Cullens received her Ph.D. from the University of Colorado at Boulder in December 2011. She did a post-doc at University of California Berkeley / Space Sciences Laboratory. Her research focuses on atmospheric dynamics from the stratosphere to the thermosphere using both satellite observations and numerical simulations. She is a science team member of NASA ICON (Ionospheric Connection Explorer) satellite mission and received various research grant from NASA and NSF.

Bio: Dr. Quan Gan received his PhD from Wuhan University in 2014. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Louisville (Kentucky) from 2014 – 2016 and at Clemson University (South Carolina) from 2016 – 2018. He joined NASA’s GOLD mission team In January 2019 as a research scientist at LASP. His research interests primarily include the coupling of the Atmosphere – Ionosphere system (A-I) via global-scale atmospheric waves (i.e., Kelvin waves, tides, and Rossby waves) and wave dynamics in the middle atmosphere. He specializes in satellite data analysis (LEO and GEO) and simulations using state-of-the-art community models.