Graduate Program in Atmospheric Physics

The M.S. and Ph.D. Programs in Atmospheric Physics provide students with a fundamental background in graduate applied physics combined with an in-depth grounding in the fundamentals of atmospheric physics. This program includes both survey courses at the 600 level and specialty courses, stressing atmospheric radiation and remote sensing at the 700 level. These courses cover a wide range of topics in atmospheric physics, global climate change, observational techniques, and satellite data analysis. An extremely wide range of thesis topics is available to the student via both the tenure-track faculty and the JCET faculty. Facilities and data-sets at NASA/Goddard will be readily available to students depending on their research interests.

Degree Requirements:

Master of Science:   The M.S. degree is a terminal degree designed to prepare the graduate for immediate entry into the workforce as a practicing professional. The degree program is designed to offer students maximum flexibility, with most of the course requirements being electives. The minimum requirement for the M.S. degree is a total of 30 credit hours of which 18 credit hours must be taken at the 600 level or higher. Students are encouraged to choose the thesis option, although a non-thesis option is available. All students must complete the core curriculum which consists of PHYS 605 (Mathematical Physics) and either PHYS 601 (Quantum Mechanics I) or PHYS 424 (Introduction to Quantum Mechanics) taken for graduate credit, and 3 specialty courses in atmospheric physics including PHYS 621 and PHYS 622. All of these required courses must be passed with a minimum grade of B. All students are also required to take PHYS 698 (Physics Seminar) for each of the first three semesters.

In addition to the M.S. core curriculum, students selecting the thesis option must complete a further 6 credit hours of course work approved by a faculty advisor and 6 credit hours of PHYS 799 (Masters Thesis Research). Students doing a M.S. thesis are not required to take a written comprehensive examination. Before the student begins their research they must successfully defend their thesis proposal before their thesis committee.

In addition to the M.S. core curriculum, students selecting the non-thesis option must complete a further 12 credit hours of lecture course work approved by a faculty advisor, write a scholarly paper as part of an elective course, and pass a written comprehensive examination. Normally, at least 6 of these additional 12 credits would be from courses offered by the Physics Department.

Doctor of Philosophy:   The minimum requirement for the Ph.D. in atmospheric physics is a total of 46 credit hours, with a minimum of 28 credit hours of lecture courses at the 600 level or higher and 12 credit hours of doctoral research (PHYS 899). All course work must be approved by the faculty advisor. During their first year the students take the 6 Ph.D. core curriculum courses listed below.

First Year Courses  (all required)

        Fall                                            Spring

PHYS 621  Atmospheric Physics I         PHYS 622  Atmospheric Physics II
PHYS 601  Quantum Mechanics I           PHYS 607  Electromagnetic Theory
PHYS 605 Mathematical Physics           PHYS 602 Statistical Mechanics  

In addition to the Ph.D core curriculum, Ph.D. students must also pass PHYS 690 (Professional Techniques in Physics), and take PHYS 640 (Computational Physics), at least two specialized courses in atmospheric physics, and a minimum of 12 credit hours of PHYS 899 (Doctoral Thesis Research). All students are also required to take PHYS 698 (Physics Seminar) for each of the first three semesters. The specialized courses in atmospheric physics include PHYS 721 (Atmospheric Radiative Transfer), PHYS 722 (Atmospheric Remote Sensing), PHYS 731 (Atmospheric Dynamics), PHYS 741 (Inverse Methods and Data Analysis), and PHYS 732 (Computational Fluid Dynamics).

In order to be admitted to candidacy for the Ph.D.degree, students must first complete the Ph.D. core curriculum and then pass a written qualifying examination. The written qualifying examination covers all of undergraduate physics and the graduate-level material covered by the Ph.D. core curriculum. It is usually offered in both August and January. The examination should be taken no later than the January following the end of the students first academic year in the program. Students holding a M.S. from another institution must take the examination in their first year. Students failing the qualifying examination must retake it at the next opportunity. Students who fail the qualifying examination at the second attempt will not be admitted to candidacy for the Ph. D. degree.

After passing the qualifying examination, a prospective Ph.D. student must select a faculty advisor to supervise the dissertation research. After selecting an advisor, a student should begin acquiring the necessary background knowledge to conduct research and develop a research plan. As soon as possible, but no later than twelve months after passing the qualifying examination, a student must deliver an oral presentation of the proposed research project to a preliminary committee consisting of at least three members of the Physics Department faculty. At least one member of the committee must be a tenure track member of the Physics Department faculty. Based upon this presentation, and the overall graduate record of the student, the full faculty will vote whether or not to recommend to the Graduate School that the student be admitted to candidacy for the Ph.D. degree.

After admission to candidacy and completion of the research, the student will be required to write and defend a dissertation before a committee constituted in accordance with the Graduate School regulations. The chair of this committee must be a regular member of the graduate faculty. For dissertation advisors with affiliate status (JCET members), a tenure-track faculty member in Physics will co-chair the dissertation committee. This research should be of a quality suitable for publication in a refereed professional journal.

Course Listings: The courses listed below must be offered for the Atmospheric Physics Ph.D. program, all of which are listed in the present UMBC catalog. Students in this program can take elective courses that include other Physics courses not listed here, as well as courses in other related departments (such as Mathematics).

[PHYS 601] Quantum Mechanics I (3)

[PHYS 602] Statistical Mechanics (3)

[PHYS 604] Mathematical Physics (3)

[PHYS 607] Electromagnetic Waves and Radiation (3)

[PHYS 621] Atmospheric Physics I (3)

[PHYS 622] Atmospheric Physics II (3)

[PHYS 640] Computational Physics (3)

[PHYS 650] Special Topics in Applied Physics (1-3)

[PHYS 671] Introduction to High-Resolution Spectroscopy (3)

[PHYS 690] Professional Techniques in Physics (1)

[PHYS 698] Physics Seminar (1)

[PHYS 721] Atmospheric Radiative Transfer (3)

[PHYS 722] Remote Sensing of the Earth's Atmosphere (3)

[PHYS 731] Atmospheric Dynamics (3)

[PHYS 732] Computational Fluid Dynamics (3)

[PHYS 741] Inverse Methods and Data Analysis (3)

[PHYS 799] Master's Thesis Research (1-6)

[PHYS 899] Doctoral Research (1-6)

Program Specialties:   Faculty members in this program have expertise in a wide range of research fields including atmospheric radiative transfer (both clear and cloudy atmospheres), remote sensing (of temperature, humidity, ozone, rainfall, aerosols, trace gases), data analysis, observational techniques (satellite instruments including passive spectrometers/radiometers, FTIR, and LIDAR), dynamics, and data assimilation.

Research Facilities:   The Department recently moved into a new Physics Building housing several special facilities including a Class 100 clean room for fabrication and patterning of microelectronic and photonic devices, an electron microscope room, a radioisotope preparation room, a dome housing an atmospheric lidar system, the 0.8 m telescope of which can also be used for astronomical observation, and an FTIR atmospheric remote sensing laboratory. In addition to the extensive range of equipment already in use in the Department, an additional $6,000,000 is being spent to equip the new building, thereby giving the Department more than 20 state-of-the-art research laboratories in modern and quantum optics, material physics, solid state physics, surface physics and atmospheric physics. There will be extensive computational facilities available including several Silicon Graphics Indigo workstations and an 8-processor R10000 SGI Power Challenge with 1 Gigabyte of memory and 100+ Gigabytes of disk storage, large Linux servers (4-processors with 2Gbyte RAM), and a large number of desktop PowerPCs and PCs which will be located in a special graduate student room. There is a resource room, informal meeting rooms and special seminar rooms. The new building is designed so that faculty and graduate student offices are located close to the research laboratories for experimentalists or computational facilities for theorists. University-wide facilities include an electron microscope facility (scanning and transmission), machine and glassblowing shops, and an electronics design and repair shop. The University Computer Center houses a twenty processor SGI Challenge machine, and numerous computer laboratories containing SGI workstations, Macintosh PowerPCs and PCs . The Albin Kuhn Library houses a large collection of physics, engineering, mathematics, and chemistry journals and monographs. The library also provides access to a complete collection of science journals and books through excellent interlibrary loan and online services.

ATMOSPHERIC PHYSICS FACULTY

Professors

Hoff, Raymond M.  Ph.D. Simon Fraser University; Atmospheric physics,
aerosols, LIDAR

Strow, L. Larrabee Ph.D. University of Maryland College Park;
Spectroscopy, atmospheric radiative transfer, remote sensing

Assistant Professors

McMillan, W. Wallace, Ph. D. The Johns Hopkins University;
Atmospheric remote sensing, chemistry and dynamics.

Research Associate Professors

Ferrier, Brad S., Ph. D. University of Washington; cloud microphysics
and dynamics, mesoscale dynamics

Kinne, Stefan, Ph. D. University of Utah, radiative transfer, cirrus
cloud physics, climate impact studies

Marshak, Alexander, Ph.D. Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences
of the Former USSR, 3-d cloud radiative transfer, remote sensing

Olsen, Bill, Ph. D.  University of Wisconsin-Madison, cloud
microphysics and dynamics, mesoscale dynamics

Sparling, Lynn, Ph. D. University of Texas, Austin; Stratospheric
dynamics, statistical modeling

Pavlis, Erricos, Ph.D. Ohio State University, Laser ranging, gravity
field research

Torres, Omar, Ph. D. Georgia Institute of Technology, Aerosol
radiative transfer, UV remote sensing of ozone and aerosols

Sirota, J. Marcos, Ph. D. University of Washington, Optical
Instrumentation, laser spectroscopy


Research Assistant Professors

Demoz, Belay, Ph. D. University of Nevada-Reno, cloud microphysics and
dynamics, LIDAR, boundary layer studies

Menard, Richard, Ph. D.McGill University, Dynamics, data assimilation,
Kalman filtering

Oreopoulos, Lazaros, Ph. D. McGill University, Cloud radiative
properties, remote sensing

Platnick, Steven E., Ph. D. University of Arizona, Atmospheric
radiation, satellite and aircraft remote sensing, instrumentation

Soulen, Peter, Ph.D.. University of Chicago, remote sensing of ozone,
radiative properties of cirrus clouds

Adjunct Professor

Cahalan, Robert, Ph. D. University of Illinois, radiative transfer,
remote sensing of clouds

Also listed in the Applied Physics faculty