Climate scientist aims to understand the convective forces driving El Niño and the South Asian monsoons

Cambridge, Mass. - April 12, 2012 - Harvard President Drew Faust has approved Zhiming Kuang for promotion to the role of full professor with tenure.

A climate scientist who specializes in modeling tropical convection systems, Kuang holds a joint appointment in the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences (EPS). His work investigates how tropical convection interacts with large-scale atmospheric flow, and how fluctuations in that system can bring about rainfall or drought.

In 2010, he coauthored a study which challenged the conventional view that South Asian monsoons were caused by a massive release of heat from the high-altitude Tibetan Plateau. With colleagues in EPS, Kuang created a model of atmospheric circulation and demonstrated that the insulating barrier of the Himalayas is just as capable of producing a monsoon, without the influence of the Plateau.

The implications of that research extend to land use in South Asia and the future of the region’s water supply.

Kuang also studies and simulates the El Niño Southern Oscillation with the goal of understanding both its meteorological effects and its impact on global chemistry.

His work has the potential to affect the lives of billions of people worldwide… [more]

Mechanics and geosciences expert honored for seminal contributions to strain localization, poromechanics, and friction

The 2012 Louis Néel Medal has been awarded to James R. Rice for his seminal contributions to the fundamental understanding of strain localization, poromechanics, and friction.

The award committee praised his elegant and systematic studies that have elucidated fault mechanics and the coupling with hydrologic and thermal processes during all phases of the earthquake cycle.

This medal, given on behalf of the European Geosciences Union, is reserved for individuals in recognition of outstanding achievements in rock magnetism and rock physics and geomaterials.

Rice, Mallinckrodt Professor of Engineering Sciences and Geophysics in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences (EPS) at Harvard, is widely recognized as the world’s leading researcher in solid mechanics over the last four decades, having contributed so broadly not only in engineering, but also in geosciences… [more]