Iungo recently received a Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation to advance his research. “We’re trying to understand how we can predict the trapping of particles and how those particles interact with the wind turbulence and are transported over long distances,” Iungo said. The research combines the disciplines of meteorology, chemistry, physics and fluid mechanics to analyze factors such as ocean currents, turbulence and wind velocity, which affect the movement of aerosolized particles. A wind lidar (light detection and ranging) is a remote-sensing instrument that uses a laser to provide high-resolution measurements of wind velocity, the intensity of turbulence and the concentration of aerosol particles. The research builds on Iungo’s previous work in Galveston Bay, supported by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative.