Current Group Members 

• Susan Mathai –  Postdoctoral Research Associate

Susan joined the group in April 2026, and her research is to characterize dust particle morphologies and to improve dust optical property models, supported by an NSF project. 

• Keying Li – Ph.D. Student 

Keying is a Ph.D. student who joined in Fall 2024. She is working on algorithm development for airborne remote sensing to investigate the cloud glaciation processes in mixed-phase clouds.

• Brianna Hauke – M.S. Student

Brianna is a Master's student who joined in Fall 2024. She is investigating the mechanism of convective cloud development using geostationary satellite remote sensing.

• Eliza Abbamonte – M.S. Student

Eliza is a Master's student who joined in Fall 2025. She is working on the MARS trailer 

• Rebecca Moore – M.S. Student

Rebecca is a Master's student who joined in Fall 2026. She is working on remote sensing of dust plumes using spaceborne lidar and hyperspectral datasets in support of a NASA EMIT project.

Former Group Members

• Ebenezer Boakye Yiadom – M.S. in Atmospheric Science in Summer 2025 

Ebenezer joined the group in Fall 2023 as an inaugural student advised by Saito and received an M.S. degree in Atmospheric Science in August 2025. He is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

• Thomas Oppermann – Visiting Scholar in Summer 2025 

Thomas was a visiting scholar who stayed in the group from July to October 2025. He is a Ph.D. student at the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) in Germany