Yi gave an invited seminar in the Department of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering at the University of Michigan. Yi spent a day visiting the department, meeting with students and faculty members. The seminar, "Accelerating Methane Growth Rates: Atmospheric Inversions and Underconstrained Stratosphere-Troposphere Exchange Impacts," drew an engaged audience, with lively discussion continued afterwards.

Yi visited the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology (E3B) at Columbia University for an invited seminar with a day of exciting conversations. The seminar entitled "Historical Legacies and Modern Risks: Heat Disparities across U.S. Cities and Wildfire Risk Amplification at Urban Edges", sparked many engaging discussions.

The visit allowed wide-ranging conversations with E3B faculty and students on topics spanning biogeochemical cycles, tick range expansion in urban green spaces, tree growth, and challenges associated with climate change ranging from fire, wetland methane emissions, and migratory birds! Very grateful for such a stimulating visit.

Our lab is awarded a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Climate Change and Human Health Seed Grant ($50k) for our project, "Moving Into Harm's Way? Paradox of Domestic Migration, Climate Extremes, and Health System Readiness."

In collaboration with public health expert Rumi Chunara (NYU) and sociologist and climate governance scholar Ian Gray (Johns Hopkins University), this project investigates a timely and underexplored question: as people migrate domestically, are they moving toward or away from greater climate risk? We will examine the intersections of domestic migration patterns, exposure to climate extremes, and the readiness of health systems to meet growing demand.

We are grateful to the Burroughs Wellcome Fund for their support, and thrilled to be working with such an outstanding team of collaborators.

This is a fantastic AGU. Yi gave an invited talk at the AGU Fall Meeting 2025 in Washington, D.C., titled "Advancing Understanding and Prediction of Drought-Heat-Wildfire Extremes", and a poster entitled "Reassessing Methane Growth: The Underestimated Impact of Atmospheric Exchange Processes" in the global methane budget session.

Qingyu gave a fantastic talk on "Inversion-Based Reassessment: Is the Tropical Terrestrial Ecosystem a Carbon Source or Sink?". Ashley presented her poster "Satellite-Based Monitoring of Forest Recovery After Wildfires in California". Anamika presented her poster "The Roots and Remedies of Urban Heat Inequity: A Remotely Sensed Exploration of Diurnal and Seasonal Thermal Disparities in Los Angeles" and a talk (presented by Quentin) "Mapping Urban Heat, Mortality, and Cooling Feasibility: A Spatial Framework for Effective and Equitable Heat Mitigation in Cities".

Yi gave a public talk at the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute titled "When Cities Get Hotter: From New York to Abu Dhabi," with Dr. Rita Sousa from NYU Abu Dhabi, discussing urban heat challenges across different climate contexts and potential adaptation strategies.

Our paper Contemporary income inequality outweighs historic redlining in shaping intra-urban heat disparities in Los Angeles is now published in Nature Communications.

Led by postdoc Anamika Shreevastava, this study reveals that present-day income inequality is a stronger predictor of intra-urban heat disparities in Los Angeles than historical redlining. The findings underscore the need for climate adaptation policies that address current socioeconomic inequities, not just historical ones.

Also wonderful news that Anamika will be joining NYU Tandon Engineering School as Assistant Professor in Fall 2025!

Yi has been honored with the NYU Arts & Science Teaching Innovation Award for her work in redesigning the departmental core course ES100: Environmental System Science. The redesign features three key improvements: more emphasize on systematic thinking, more opportunity to collect and analyze environmental data during recitation sessions, better integration between course materials and environmental question-driven assignments.

Welcome Dr. Xinlei Liu to join our group! Xinlei received her PhD from Nankai University in China, and conducted postdoctoral research at Peking University, with a visiting period at UCLA. She will be working on fire dynamics and impacts on air quality and human health.

Welcome Baby Tara to this beautiful world! Yi will be taking family leave in the following 3 months, but will read her emails periodically.

Welcome Dr. Qingyu Wang to join our lab!

Welcome to our visiting PhD student Hong Wei from Tsinghua University! Hong will be working with Yi on the cooling efficiency of urban trees and their responses and resilience during compound climate extremes.

Yi gave an invited seminar at the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in Cornell University, entitled "Key Driving Factors for the Accelerating Methane Growth Rates." It is always energizing and inspiring to discuss with fellow scientists on broad topics and explore potential collaborations.

Thrilled to share that our OCO (Orbiting Carbon Observatory) proposal, in collaboration with Dr. Frankenberg at Caltech, has been awarded by NASA! The project, "Optimizing Carbon Observations: Long-Term Understanding and Synthesis (OCO-LOTUS)," will combine atmospheric CO$_2$​ observations with Solar-induced Chlorophyll Fluorescence to deepen our understanding of the global carbon cycle, leveraging a decade of data from the OCO-2/3 mission. A huge thank you to NASA for the support!

Yi is appointed as an Associate Editor at Science Advances, a leading multidisciplinary open-access journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Having benefited so much from the peer review process over the years, she is very honored and excited to give back and help fellow researchers share their work with the world.

Yi visited UCLA for an invited seminar at the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, entitled "Accelerating methane growth rates in recent years."

We had many interesting discussions with students and faculty regarding climate extremes, greenhouse gas emissions, carbon-climate feedbacks, and heat disparity across income groups in Los Angeles. I learned that each quarter, the students collectively pick one invited speaker, and they had voted for my 2023 LA heat disparity paper. No wonder the discussion on heat disparities and pathways for equitable climate adaptation was so lively! Always energizing to connect with such a curious and engaged group.

It is always so nice to soak up some Southern California sunshine. I also take the opportunity to swung by Caltech to catch up with former colleagues and friends, and the conversations were just as inspiring.

Congratulations to Liyin He for her new paper The weekly cycle of photosynthesis in Europe reveals the negative impact of particulate pollution on carbon uptake, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

We observed a weekly cycle of air pollution that is significantly alleviated on the weekends across Europe, and associated with a co-varying weekly cycle of solar-induced fluorescence. This study demonstrates that particulate air pollution significantly reduces vegetation photosynthesis — providing new evidence linking air quality to carbon cycle and crop yield impacts.

I am officially joining the Department of Environmental Studies at NYU as a faculty member and starting a new lab! 🌿

A new chapter begins, and I am excited to be part of such a vibrant community of scholars tackling some of the most pressing environmental challenges of our time.

I look forward to building a collaborative, curious, and creative research group. To the ideas, questions, and discoveries that lie ahead.

Please feel free to reach out if you're interested in joining or collaborating.

Our paper Unequal exposure to heatwaves in Los Angeles: Impact of uneven green spaces is now published in Science Advances.

We found that urban green spaces are unevenly distributed across LA neighborhoods, creating inequitable exposure to extreme heat events. This work highlights the need for targeted climate adaptation strategies that prioritize environmental justice.

Media Coverage#

• CBS Los Angeles
• Caltech News
• Pasadena Now
• Phys.org
• Mirage News
• Carnegie Science