Matthew Graber

Hello everyone! I am a first-year Ph.D. student (3rd-year graduate student) working with Drs. Robert Trapp and Zhuo Wang. In May 2022, I graduated from Purdue University with my B.S. in Atmospheric Sciences. In addition to my major, I minored in Chemistry and graduated with Honors. One opportunity I had for research included working with atmospheric aerosols derived from biomass burning and agricultural processes to look at the physical and chemical structure for possible impacts on climate change. The project specific to biomass burning was funded by NASA's FIREX-AQ program. I operated a photo spectrometer to visualize the aerosol compounds undergoing photolysis and hydrolysis. Furthermore, I operated a cloud condensation nuclei counter (CCNc) to determine the potential of different aerosols to act as CCN at different supersaturations.

Additionally, I worked on the Purdue weather radar (the XTRRA) and the NWS mesocyclone detection algorithm to determine if a tornado near the campus would have been detected by the algorithm if it was available on the radar. With the Purdue campus located relatively far from nearby NWS radars, this research was important from a risk and safety standpoint since the tornado I was studying was not warned by the NWS algorithm. At both Purdue and Illinois, I have had experience working on the PERiLS field campaign. 

When I am not doing work, I am a competitive distance runner. All in all, I love sports and being active outside in nature. Other than MLB. I tend to prefer college sports over professional sports. I am a huge Chicago White Sox and Purdue Boilermakers (sorry!) fan, but I have warmed up to the Illinois Fighting Illini as well.