Group members
Principal Investigator
Yafang Cheng
Yafang Cheng’s research focuses on aerosols. She is
developing and combining experimental methods and
multi-scale modeling tools to elucidate the mechanisms
of aerosol particle formation and transformation as well
as the impact of aerosols on air quality, public health,
and climate change.
Email: yafang.cheng@mpic.de
Technical Staff
Uwe Kuhn
Sources, atmospheric transformation and sinks of climatically
relevant trace gases of the earth’s atmosphere is focus of my
research.
Email: u.kuhn@mpic.de
Students
Bruno Backes Meller
Bruno’s research aims at understanding sources and life cycle
of aerosols in the Amazon atmosphere, particularly the physical
and chemical mechanisms of secondary formation. To this end,
he works on Amazon field campaigns to measure aerosol, gas
and cluster chemical composition using mass spectrometry.
Bruno is an exchange student from the Institute of Physics,
University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Email: bruno.meller@usp.br
Elizabeth Rigby
Elizabeth studies physical and chemical properties of aerosol
particles using optical tweezers. She is a visiting student from
Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH, USA.
Email: e.rigby@mpic.de
Ivan Eremets
Ivan studies new particle formation at high altitude &
aerosol-radiation-cloud interactions using WRF-Chem model.
Email: ivan.eremets@mpic.de
Jianqiang Zhu
Using different state-of-the-art particle measurement
instruments (Nano-SPMS, NAIS, and PSM), Jianqiang studies
atmopsheric particle form and further growth in
different regions, including China, Europe, and Amazon forests.
Meanwhile, he is also working on the Nano-HTDMA
to investigate the hygroscopicity of organic
nano-particles and the size effect.
Email: Jianqiang.Zhu@mpic.de
Matteo Krüger
Matteo’s research addresses the health effects of
exposure to particulate matter with an emphasis on
smoking and passive smoking using kinetic modeling.
Also, he explores different applications of machine
learning in atmospheric chemistry. Matteo is an external
group member from Berkemeier’s Group for developing
joint research interested in AI/ML.
Email: m.krueger@mpic.de
Qinqin Yu
Qinqin’s research focuses on aerosol formation and
environmental & climate impact in low temperature
environment, e.g., her field observations were mainly
conducted in cold winter in Harbin city in northern
China. She is an exchange PhD student, supported
by CSC.
Email: qinqin.yu@mpic.de
Xihao Pan
Xihao’s research focuses on the effects of black carbon on the
climate at high altitude. He is responsible for the data handling
of CARIBIC-SP2, which measures the physicochemical
properties of individual BC particles in the upper troposphere
and lowermost stratosphere. Xihao is a PhD student,
supported by CSC.
Email: xihao.pan@mpic.de
Yunzhi Xu
Yunzhi’s research focuses on the analysis of air pollution
characteristics in Northern China, in particular the
formation of Hydroxymethanesulfonate (HMS)
in PM2.5. She is an exchange PhD student, supported
by CSC.
Email: yunzhi.xu@mpic.de
Postdoctoral Researchers
Chaoqun Ma
Chaoqun works with regional and global atmospheric chemistry
models, as well as Data Assimilation and Deep Learning
technologies. With these tools, he investigates different
processes about atmospheric chemistry and their
interactions with the Earth system.
Email: Ch.Ma@mpic.de
Fengxia Bao
Fengxia studies the mechanisms of HONO production
from soils using laboratory smog chambers combined
with long-path absorption photometric (LPAP) HONO
measurement systems.
Email: Fengxia.Bao@mpic.de
Guo Li
Guo’s current research topics are mainly related to
development of techniques to directly probe the
acidity (pH) of ambient aerosols and participating
field campaigns to explore aerosol composition
and growth characteristics under varied
environmental conditions.
Guo did his PhD research also in Cheng’s group,
supported by CSC (graduated in 2018).
Email: guo.li@mpic.de
Lianfang Wei
Lianfang is working on incorporating the isotopic
chemistry tagging technique into atmospheric chemical
transport model to improve simulation of secondary
inorganic aerosol (sulfate, nitrate, and ammonium), and to
constrain their formation processes and sources. She is
supported by CSC.
Email: lianfang.wei@mpic.de
Ruijing Ni
Ruijng’s research focuses on the impact of air pollution
exposure on public health. By combining the epidemiological
data and modeling simulations, I investigate the global
burden of disease attributable to air pollution exposure
(especially the particulate matter exposure).
Email: Ruijing.Ni@mpic.de
Siyao Yue
Siyao studies the roles of biological aerosols (bioaerosols)
in the atmosphere and the Earth system. He develops
programming tools for the post-analysis of the collected
data using WIBS and fluorescence techniques. He also
study the chemistry of brown carbon and their impact on
the climate, e.g., the Arctic warming.
Email: siyao.yue@mpic.de
Wen-Chien Lee
Wen-Chien studies physicochemical properties of
aerosol particles using optical tweezers.
Email: Wen-Chien.Lee@mpic.de
Wenjie Wang
Wenjie’s research focuses on ozone pollution issues
and coupling effects between ozone and particulate
matter in the atmosphere by applying measurement
data and model simulations.
Email: Wenjie.Wang@mpic.de
Wenjun Meng
Wenjun’s research focuses on investigating the co-benefits
between air pollution control and climate change mitigation.
Email: w.meng@mpic.de
Visiting Scholars
Gregory Carmichael
Professor, Chemical and Biochemical Engineering
Karl Kammermeyer Professor of Chemical and Biochemical
Engineering; Professor, Applied Mathematical and
Computational Sciences; Co-director, Center for Global and
Regional Environmental Research
Univeristy of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA
Email: gregory-carmichael@uiowa.edu
Alumni
Group funding
Stefan Nordmann (postdoc, 2012-2015; now: research scientist at UBA)
Hannah Meusel (PhD student, graduated in 2017)
Jeanine Ditas (postdoc, 2014-2019)
Nan Ma (postdoc/project leader, 2016-2018; now: professor at Jinan University)
Qing Mu (co-advised PhD, graduated in 2018; now: tenured research scientist at Norwegian Meteorological Institute)
Jiandong Wang (postdoc, 2016-2019; now: associate professor at Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology)
Yuxuan Zhang (postdoc, 2017-2020; exchange PhD student, graduated in 2017, funded by CSC, 2015-2016; now: assistant professor at Nanjing University)
Wei Tao (postdoc, WRF-Chem modeling, 2018-2022)
Lixia Liu (postdoc, 2021-2022; PhD student, graduated in 2021; now: resarch assistant at Nanjing University)
Meng Li (postdoc, AOT single particle analyses, 2019-2022; now: postdoc at UCSD, USA)
Chuchu Chen (PhD, graduated in 2022; now: researcher at Chinese Academy of Environmental Planning)
Guangjie Zheng (postdoc/project leader, 2019-2023; exchange PhD student, graduated in 2016, funded by CSC, 2014-2015; now: assistant professor at Tsinghua University)
Other Funding
Tabish Ansari (visiting student; funded by IIT Madras, India, 2013; now: Research Associate at Research Institute for Sustainibility Helmholtz Center Potsdam)
Qihou Hu (visiting scientist, supported by CSC, 2016-2017, now: associate professor at USTC)
Yan Xiang (exchange PhD student; funded by CSC, 2016-2017; now: assistant professor at Anhui Univ.)
Yunping Lin (visiting scientist, supported by CSC, 2017-2018, now: )
Pusheng Zhao (visiting scientist, supported by CSC, 2017-2018; now: senior scientist at IAP, Chinese Academy of Science)
Qian Liu (visiting scientist, supported by CSC, 2017-2018; now: )
Qiaoqiao Wang (visiting scientist, 2017-2018, now: professor at Jinan University)
Zhibin Wang (postdoc/project leader, 2013-2017; now: professor at Zhejiang University)
Ying Chen (exchange PhD student, graduated in 2017; funded by TROPOS, Leipzig; now: tenured assistant professor at University of Birmingham)
Ke Ding (exchange PhD student, graduated in 2019; funded by CSC, 2018; now: assistant professor at Nanjing University)
Minghui Zhang (PhD student, graducated in 2019, supported by CSC)
Xiaoxiang Wang (PhD student, graduated in 2019; funded by CSC)
Jiaping Wang (exchange PhD, graduated in 2019; funded by CSC, 2019; now: assistant professor at Nanjing University)
Pingqing Fu (visiting scientist, 2019. Professor at Tianjing University)
Meng Li (postdoc, 2016-2019; now: research scientist at NOAA, USA)
Xin Wang (PhD student, graducated in 2020, supported by CSC)
Ting Lei (PhD student, graduated in 2021)
Najin Kim (postdoc, BS2-CCN, 2019-2022; now: senior permanent scientist at Korea Institute of Science and Technology)
Siwen Wang (postdoc/project leader, 2014-2022, supported by ESA project; now: associate professor Beijing Univ. of Technology)
Man Yu (postdoc, 2018-2023, supported by MPIC-JNU program)
Jiani Tan (postdoc, nitrogen deposition, 2020-2023; now: assistant professor at Shanghai Univ.)