Rong Fu


Rong Fu is a Chinese climatologist, meteorologist, researcher, professor, and published author with more than 100 articles, books, and projects detailing the changes that occur in Earth's atmosphere and how that affects areas such as climate, seasons, rainfall, and the like. Dr. Rong Fu has been invited to present and attend over 115 presentations, seminars, and administered over 32 projects that received over 11 million dollars in funding. The focus of Dr. Fu’s research is convection; cloud and precipitation processes and their role in climate, atmospheric transport in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, the interaction between the atmosphere and ocean and land/ vegetation, satellite remote sensing applications and retrievals, the interaction between rainfall rates and the rainforest in regions of the Amazon in South America, and drought prediction in states across the United States, including California and Texas. She is currently a professor in the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences Department at UCLA and the associate director of UCLA's Joint Instititute for Regional Earth System Science and Engineering.[1] She is also an adjunct professor in the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin.[2]

Early life and education

Rong Fu was born in China. The leader in power at the time encouraged society to adopt an equal playing field in regards to men and women. Women were encouraged to pursue an education and enter the workforce after receiving their education. Fu attended Peking University and graduated as a Meteorology major. Fu continued her education at Columbia University, where she worked as a Graduate Research Assistant and obtained her Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences. After completing her degree at Columbia University Fu came to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as a post-doctoral researcher in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences.

Career

Fu career spans over decades of her influential work as a climatologist, meteorologist, faculty and chair to many universities, and president of renowned organizations. After receiving degrees from Columbia University and UCLA, Dr. Fu was welcomed to the Geophysical Fluid Dynamic Laboratory at Princeton University as a visiting scientist. After her time in Princeton, Dr. Fu spent 5 years at The University of Arizona as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences. Moving on from the University of Arizona, Dr. Fu became an associate professor in the School of Earth Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. During her time at the Georgia Institute of Technology (GIT) Dr. Fu served as a guest professor at Beijing Normal University from 2007-2011. Dr. Fu’s time at The University of Texas at Austin was as a professor at the Jackson School of Geosciences. During this time, Dr. Fu was also the associate Chair of the Department of Geological Sciences and the Leader in the Climate Dynamics Discipline. Dr. Fu was also elected as the president of the Global Environmental Change Focus Group of the American Geophysical Union from January 2013 to December 2016. During her time in Austin, Texas, Dr. Fu was on a team of acclaimed climatologists, meteorologist that worked with the Texas State Agency to design a prediction system that would help predict seasons of drought. The flood that occurred in Texas between the years of 2011 and 2012 were so detrimental to the population that they enlisted teams of climatologists, meteorologists’, and geologists to develop a prediction system to track when these droughts might occur. The prediction system that Fu and her team designed was chosen and effective in helping the Texas State Agency prepare for the seasonal rains the following year.

Fu has been invited to attend and speak at over 115 presentations and seminars. She has been the keynote speaker and invited to give presentations at Universidad De Antioquia, in Medellin, Colombia, Stanford University, Princeton University, the University of California, Los Angeles, University of Illinois, University of Tennessee, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology in Nanjing, China, University of Hawaii at Manoa, and many more.

Fu has administered over 32 projects worth more than $11 million in funding and has been the Principal Investigator (PI) to more than $9 million of that funding. Many of these projects focused on the effects of rainfall, climate variations, seasonality affect surroundings environments and predicting trends for the future areas. Including other fellow climatologists and meteorologists, a great deal of Fu’s research overlaps with hydrologists, agriculturists, and ecologists.

Fu has been on the Board of Reviewers for 15 journals and publications of companies including Science, Nature, Journal of Climate, Journal of Hydrometeorology, Earth’s Future, International Journal of Climatology. She has reviewed grant proposals for over 7 agencies including the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA), National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences.

Although her elaborate career has afforded many opportunities and research projects both nationally and internationally, she has also made her mark as a graduate and undergraduate professor teaching courses in the geosciences and atmospheric sciences at universities including Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Texas at Austin, The University of Arizona, and the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Fu also served as an undergraduate, graduate research advisor, and mentor to several students who have gone on to achieve great successes in their careers of which include working at Apple Inc., Post-doctoral researchers at UCLA and NASA JPL, a Mission Engineer at the NASA Langley Laboratory, researcher scientists at Columbia University, Associate Professor at Tsinghua University, and many more.

Dr. Fu is currently at the University of California, Los Angeles, a faculty member in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and is serving as the Visiting Chair Professor at Tsinghua University in China.

Research

Fu’s research focuses have spanned topics including convection, cloud and precipitation processes and their role in climate; atmospheric transport in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere; interactions between the atmosphere, the ocean, and the vegetation produced by the land; and satellite remote sensing applications and retrievals. Her projects and groundbreaking discoveries have expanded her platform on a national level and internationally.

For 20- 30 decades Fu has been doing research in the Amazon and across South America that demonstrates the importance of maintenance of the rainforest to sustain the rainfall rates of the Amazon. This research work is vital to the continuation of the Amazonian environment and many more environments. Efforts in this research endeavor, if proven successful will save the largest terrestrial biome on the Earth. Dr. Fu hopes to expands these research efforts to other areas such as the Congo.

Honors and awards

Fu has received numerous awards and is very distinguished in her field of work. Fu has been the recipient of the NSF Career Award 1995, NASA Mission to Planet Earth New Investigator Award 1996, The Chinese National Science Foundation (CNSF)Outstanding Oversea-Chinese Scientist Award 2004, Georgia Institute of Technology Hesbourgh Award Teaching Fellow 2004, AGU 2006 Editors’ Citation for Excellence in Refereeing for Geophysical Research Letter, NASA Group Achievement Award 2007, UARS Team and Fellow, the American Meteorological Society 2015.

Fu has had her work published by renowned and award-winning media outlets such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Newsweek, United Press International, LiveScience, the Huffington Post, BBC Discovery Natural History, NASA News and Earth Observing Features, BBC Natural History One Planet, and the Discovery Channel.

References

  1. ↑ "Director and Associate Directors". Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science & Engineering. UCLA. Retrieved 3 July 2017.
  2. ↑ "Rong Fu". Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved 3 July 2017.
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