Current Lidar Team
2001 Ph.D. in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Dr. Mayor specializes in atmospheric lidar and boundary layer meteorology.
Project Page
Chris Mauzey, Programmer and Research Assistant
2010 B.S. in Computer Science; California State University, Chico.
Chris began working in the lidar group in September 2010. He specializes in parallel processing.
Tyson Randall, Graduate Student in Environmental Science.
2011 B.A. in Physics from UC Santa Barbara
Tyson joined the lidar team in January of 2012. He is studying canopy waves in the CHATS data.
Masaki Hamada, Graduate Student in Environmental Science.
2011 B.A. in Physics from CSU Chico
2014 M.S. in Environmental Science from CSU Chico
Masaki joined the lidar team in September of 2012. He is studying the performance of the cross-correlation algorithm for remote wind measurements.
Christopher Hasek, Graduate Student in Computer Science
2013 B.S. in Physics and Computer Science
Chris Hasek has worked in the lidar group since 2010. He has completed a number of projects to facilitate the display of REAL data.
Ryan Clare, Undergraduate Research Assistant
Chico State Major: Environmental Science
Ryan joined the lidar group in the summer of 2014.
Jason Stockton, Undergraduate Research Assistant
Chico State Major: Physics
Jason joined the lidar group in the summer of 2014.
Dr. Paul Arpin, Lecturer
2012 Ph.D. in Physics from
University of Colorado at Boulder.
Dr. Aprin began working in the group in June of 2014.
Project Page
Recent Graduates
Lena Heffern, Undergraduate Research Assistant
Chico State Major: Physics, Mechanical Engineering; Graduation: May 2013.
Lena began working in the lidar group in September 2011 and is assisted with the mechanical engineering aspects of the REAL.
William (Gabe) Vivas, Undergraduate Research Assistant
Chico State Major: Mechanical Engineering; Graduation: May 2013.
Gabe joined the lidar team in May of 2012.
Denton Scott, Electrical Engineer
2011 B.S. in Electrical Engineering; Brigham Young University.
2012 M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering; California State University Chico.
Denton began working in the lidar group in October of 2011. He completed a master's degree in the CSU Chico Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Alan Rhoades, Undergraduate Research Assistant
Chico State Major: Environmental Science with Atmospheric Science option; Graduation: May 2012.
Alan worked briefly in the lidar team during the spring of 2012. He installed the WRF model on the Physics server. He is now a graduate student at UC Davis.
Waleed Amjad, Undergraduate Research Assistant
Chico State Major: Computer Information Systems; Graduation : May 2011
Waleed worked in the lidar group from September to December of 2010. He processed REAL data from the 2004 deployment of REAL in Washington DC.
Waleed is now a software engineer for eBay.
Chris Van Hoosear, Undergraduate Research Assistant
Chico State Major: Mechatronic engineering and Computer engineering; Graduation: December 2010.
Chris Van Hoosear worked in lidar group from December through June of 2010. He began refurbishing the REAL's beam-steering unit and preparing it for new mirrors and field operation.
Chris is now a graduate student in Computer Engineering at University of the Pacific.
Terry McAFee, Undergraduate Research Assistant
Chico State Major: Physics; Graduated: May 2010
Through PHYS 499, Terry developed a comprehensive understanding of the laser and optics in REAL. He helped set up the lidar at the University farm and moved all of the components from the old shipping container into the new one.
Terry is now a graduate student in the Dept. of Physics at NC State University.
Zeb Wheeler, Undergraduate Research Assistant
Chico State Major: Computer science; Graduated: May 2010
Through PHYS 499, Zeb investigated whether the Horn and Schunck (1981) technique could be applied to lidar images to estimate vector motion fields. He also worked part-time to maintain the computer systems in the REAL lab.
Zeb now works for Cool Earth Solar.
Chris Griffo
Chico State Major: Physics; Graduated: May 2010
Chris Griffo helped set up the REAL at the university farm during the spring of 2009 and received credit through PHYS 499.
Chris is a grad student at CSU Fullerton and working with the LIGO Scientific Collaboration.
Former (or currently inactive) Lidar Team Members
Dr. Pierre Dérian, Post-doctoral Researcher
2012 Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from
INRIA Rennes - Bretagne Atlantique.
Dr. Dérian worked in the lidar group from December 2012 through December of 2014. He specializes in wavelet-based optical flow.
Project Page
Scott Gimbal, Undergraduate Research Assistant
Chico State Major: Physics; Graduation: May 2014.
Scott is working with
Dr. Anna Petrova-Mayor on polarization aspects of the REAL.
Thomas Schwab, Mechanical Engineer
2012 B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Thomas worked in the lidar group from February through June of 2013 on a variety of mechanical engineering projects. He is now a graduate student at Columbia University.
Kevin Baker, Technician
2001 B.S. in Computer Information Systems; CSU, Chico.
1987 A.A. in Business Administration; Santa Barbara City College.
1985 A.S. in Electronic Technology; Santa Barbara City College.
Kevin works part-time to maintain the lidar facility and site at the university farm.
Liz Jachens, Undergraduate Research Assistant
Chico State Major: Civil Engineering; Graduation: May 2014.
Liz began working in the lidar group in May 2011. Her focus is on fine-scale atmospheric internal waves in the CHATS data.
Project Page
Jim Schafer, Graduate Student
2001 B.S. in Geoscience from CSU Chico
Jim worked in the lidar group from January of 2012 to January of 2013 on the depth of the convective boundary layer in the northern central California valley.
Rex Belli, Undergraduate Research Assistant
Chico State Major: Physics; Graduation: December 2012.
Rex began working in the lidar group in September 2011 and is implementing algorithms to objectively identify the height of the convective boundary layer in the REAL RHI scans.
Jen Lowe, Scientific Programmer; Data Analyst
Master's of Information Science; San Jose State University. B.S. in Applied Math; University of Arizona.
Jen worked in the Lidar Group from April of 2010 to February 2012. She wrote and used programs to process, analyze, and display the REAL data from CHATS.
Forest Sears, Student Research Assistant
Chico High School, Senior
Forest began working in the lidar group in March of 2011. He learned a wide variety of technical skills required in experimental lidar research. During the summer of 2011, Forest participated in the MITES program at MIT.
Steven Sun, Student Research Assistant
Chico High School, 10th grade
Steven worked in the lidar group in July of 2011. He created images from REAL CHATS data to investigate fine-scale atmospheric waves.
Yibo Zhang, Undergraduate Research Assistant
Chico State Major: Physics; Graduation : May 2012
Yibo volunteered in the lidar group and learned how to write IDL programs.
William Meadows, Undergraduate Research Assistant
Chico State Major: Computer Science, Applied Computer Graphics; Graduation: May 2012
During the spring and summer of 2010, Will developed and ran IDL programs to transform the REAL at CHATS data set into thousands of images and animations. Results of his project can be found at NSF Project Results.
Esmeralda F. Ramirez, Undergraduate Research Assistant
Chico State Major:Journalism; Graduation: May 2012
Esmeralda produced graphics for journal articles and conference presentations; she designed the webpages and put content on them.
Shemu Nixon Ariyasivam
Chico State Major: Physics; Graduation: May 2011
Shemu helped set up the REAL at the University Farm and learned how the principles of the lidar transmitter works by taking PHYS 499.