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ECHO Administration

photo of Menas Kafatos, Ph.D.

Menas Kafatos, Ph.D.

Director, Fletcher Jones Endowed Professor of Computational Physics
Areas of Research: Quantum mechanics and mind/brain dynamics, black holes and cosmology, interdisciplinary earth system science, climate change, natural hazards (including earthquakes, wildfires, and tropical cyclones), aerosols and pollution, remote sensing, big data, vegetation and climate change, and distributed data information system architecture
photo of Seung Hee Kim, Ph.D.

Seung Hee Kim, Ph.D.

Associate Director of Operations, Research Assistant Professor
Areas of Research: Mesoscale and regional climate modeling, climate change impact assessment, and remote sensing data application
photo of Kandy Reyes

Kandy Reyes

Operations Coordinator
714-289-3112
Operations Coordinator coordinates administrative activities for ECHO and is the institute's primary contact person.

ECHO Faculty

photo of Dimitar Ouzounov, Ph.D.

Dimitar Ouzounov, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Research Faculty
Areas of Research: Geophysics, geospace applications for natural hazards risk management, lithosphere-atmosphere-ionosphere coupling, electromagnetic studies of earthquakes and volcanoes, and geocomputing
photo of Keun-Hang Susan Yang, Ph.D.

Keun-Hang Susan Yang, Ph.D.

Director of International Science Programs, Professor of Computational Neuroscience and Bioscience
Areas of Research: Modeling neuronal disorders, electrophysiology, and chemical impacts, and computational biology and bioinformatics

ECHO Affiliated Faculty

photo of Wonhee Cho, Ph.D.

Wonhee Cho, Ph.D.

Part-time Researcher
Areas of Research: Data analysis using IoT sensor data and machine learning, deep learning technologies (transportation, geo Spatial, weather/remote sensing area data), web programming (data collection, web crawling, web service, etc.)
photo of Dr. Joshua Fisher

Dr. Joshua Fisher

Presidential Fellow
Dr. Fisher is the Presidential Fellow of Ecosystem Science focusing on terrestrial ecosystems, water, carbon, and nutrient cycling using a combination of supercomputer models, remote sensing, and field campaigns from the Amazon to the Arctic. Dr. Fisher completed his undergraduate and graduate degrees from UC Berkeley, and postdoctoral work from the University of Oxford. Dr. Fisher was at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for over a decade, where he was the Science Lead of the ECOSTRESS mission. Dr. Fisher is currently the Science Lead for Hydrosat, a space company focused on plant water/use stress. Dr. Fisher has been named one of the world’s “most influential” researchers, in the top 0.1% of scientists with papers in the top 1% by citations for the past 3 years in a row.
no photo available for Francis Fujioka, Ph.D.

Francis Fujioka, Ph.D.

Affiliated Faculty
Areas of Research: Integrated weather/fire modeling, wildland fire risk assessment, fire behavior and fire danger analysis and prediction
photo of Jinwon Kim, Ph.D.

Jinwon Kim, Ph.D.

Affiliated Faculty
Areas of Research: Regional climate, water cycle, atmospheric rivers, and land-surface processes with an emphasis on the western US and East Asia
photo of Julia Kim, Ph.D.

Julia Kim, Ph.D.

Affiliated Faculty
Areas of Research: Political economy, welfare state, poverty, inequality, labor movement, food security, globalization, trade politics, climate politics, environmental politics, institutions, and economic development
no photo available for Yuna Lim, Ph.D.

Yuna Lim, Ph.D.

Research Specialist
Areas of Research: Regional climate change and climate variability and its relation to agriculture and natural hazards
photo of Thomas Piechota, Ph.D., PE

Thomas C. Piechota, Ph.D., PE

Affiliated Faculty
Dr. Piechota’s research interests center around the investigation of climate impacts on regional water resources and society using high resolution climate data/information, forecasting of water supply under changing climate conditions, drought and flood impacts in urban stormwater in urban environments, use of remote sensing data and geographic information systems for improved evaluation of hydrology and water systems.
photo of Su-Bin Oh

Su-Bin Oh

Part-time Researcher

ECHO Postdoctoral Researchers

no photo available for Won-ei Choi, Ph.D.

Won-ei Choi, Ph.D.

Postdoctoral Fellow
Areas of Research: Developing trace gas and aerosol retrieval algorithms of ground-based UV-VIS instrument

ECHO Student Researcher

no photo available for Kaila Gudinas-Castrucci

Kaila Gudinas-Castrucci

Student Research Assistant
no photo available for Slade Laszewski

Slade Laszewski

Student Research Assistant
no photo available for Anne Willner

Anne Willner

Student Research Assistant

ECHO Collaborators

Ghassem Asrar, Ph.D.
VPR-VP Research, University of Maryland

Eun-Chul Chang, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Kongju National University, South Korea

George Galanis, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Section of Mathematics, Greek Naval Academy, Greece and Researcher, Atmospheric Modeling and Weather Forecasting Group, Physics Department, University of Athens, Greece

Katsumi Hattori, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, Chiba University, Chiba, Japan

George Kallos, Ph.D.
Professor, University of Athens, School of Physics and Director, Division of Environmental Physics, and Meteorology and Senior Research Associate, SUNY/ASRC, Albany, NY and Research Professor

Vassilis Karastathis, Ph.D.
Research Director, National Observatory of Athens, Athens, Greece

Hyungjun Kim, Ph.D.
Project Associate Professor, University of Tokyo, Japan

Woo-Kyun Lee, Ph.D.
Professor, Korea University, South Korea

Yungon Lee, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Chungnam National University, South Korea

Chul-Hee Lim, Ph.D.
Research Professor, Korea University, South Korea

Xue Liu, Ph.D.
CGA Fellow, Harvard University

David Medvigy, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, University of Notre Dame

Boksoon Myoung, Ph.D.
Researcher, APEC Climate Center (APCC), Busan, South Korea

Son Nghiem, Ph.D.
Senior Research Scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

Murat Oz, Ph.D.
Faculty of Pharmacy, Kuwait University

Jeremy Pal, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science, Loyola Marymount University

Seon K. Park, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Environmental Science and Engineering Director, Center for Climate/Environment Change Prediction Research (CCCPR) Director, Severe Storm Research Center (SSRC) Ewha Womans University

Michele Romolini, Ph.D.
Research Scientist, Departments of Biology and Environmental Studies Director of Research, Center for Urban Resilience Loyola Marymount University

José Sánchez, Ph.D.
Research Economist, US Forest Service

Henry P. Stapp, Ph.D.
Quantum Mechanics Collaborator, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Eric G. Strauss, Ph.D.
President's Professor of Biology, Executive Director, Loyola Marymount University Center For Urban Resilience, Seaver College of Science & Engineering

Patrick Taylor, Ph.D.
Geophysicist, NASA GSFC, Geodesy and Geophysics Laboratory, Greenbelt, MD, USA

Robert Walko, Ph.D.
Scientist, MAS, University of Miami