A research assistant at the University of Iowa Technology Institute earned the 1st place Outstanding Oral Presentation award at the 25th Conference on Satellite Meteorology, Oceanography, and Climatology in August.

Meng Zhou, a PhD candidate and a research assistant at the Atmospheric and Environmental Research Lab within ITI, received recognition for the oral paper presentation, Lighting the Night: Application of VIIRS DNB for Monitoring Wildfire and Smoke Transport at Night.

The paper provides new knowledge in exploring Earth from space at night in a quantitative way. Remote sensing of Earth at night is a step toward improving the overall ability to monitor air quality impacts from wildfires and other contaminants.

Zhou’s paper was presented in a joint session of the 25th Conference on Satellite Meteorology, Oceanography, and Climatology and 2022 NOAA Satellite Conference: The Science of the Night--Research and Applications in the Nocturnal Environment via Low-Light Visible Satellite Sensors.

This is the latest accomplishment for Zhou who earned the Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) fellowship in NASA’s Earth Science Division. He also earned the best oral presentation among students at the 2021 meeting of the American Meteorological Society.

Zhou works under the mentorship of Jun Wang, the director of the Atmospheric and Environmental Research Lab and assistant director of ITI. Wang is the James E. Ashton Professor of Engineering and the interim chair of the UI Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering.