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Faculty
Faculty

Joseph L Wilkins (He/Him)

Assistant Professor

  • Atmospheric Science
  • College of Arts & Sciences

Biography

Dr. Joseph L. Wilkins works as an Assistant Professor at Howard University. His research focuses on remote sensing tools and air quality model development. He earned a B.S. in Atmospheric Science and minored in Physics at the University of Louisville, and later completed his M.S. and PhD in Meteorology with a concentration on Air Quality and Pollution at Saint Louis University. Dr. Wilkins is one of the leading researchers in the fire modeling community, and has published manuscripts, spoke at technical conferences, and communicates his research across many governments and academic institutions globally. The overall goal of his research program is to increase BIPOC participation in atmospheric research by creating workforce ready competent programmers and scientist.

Education & Expertise

Education

Meteorology

Ph.D.
Saint Louis University
2016

Expertise

Wildland Fire Research, Remote Sensing Tools and Air Quality Model Development

Academics

Academics

ATMS301 - Current Topics in Atmospheric Science

This 1-credit hour course will review and discuss the current literature in atmospheric science in a journal club format.  Students are expected to listen to seminars, periodically review articles, participate in discussions, and prepare questions for the presenter. Students will be expected to fill out an speaker evaluation form and write a 1-to-2-page short summaries related to each weekly topic by the preceding course date. Students may be required to present their own presentations, but are all expected to actively participate in class and online discussion forums. Outside speakers from NOAA, NASA, other agencies, and Universities will also be invited to provide their perspective. 

ATMS572 - Numerical Weather and Prediction

This 3-credit hour course will allow students to become familiar with numerical weather prediction (NWP) models, use statistical methods and software to analyze results, and implement scientific communication techniques to share their findings with broad audiences. The course involves learning and developing the skills to (1) identify appropriate data sources, (2) obtain relevant data including quality checking, (3) load data into computing packages such as Matlab or R, (4) decide what outputs the programs should provide to address specific scientific questions, (5) design algorithms and write programs/codes to read data, implement quality assurance, and check results for correctness, (6) run programs to work with large datasets and format outputs into a usable form, (7) analyze outputs using statistical methods to address scientific questions, (8) write reports and design effective visualizations of the results to communicate scientific findings to the intended audience in appropriate production formats, and (9) document the data processing and results.

Research

Research

Specialty

Subject matter expert in Wildland Fire Research, Plume Rise, Numerical Modeling, and Environmental Justice as it relates to air quality.

Funding

DOE; NASA; NOAA; NSF; U.S. FS; U.S. EPA

Group Information

Ashley Walker - PhD Candidate

Mumin Adbulahi - PhD Candidate  

Zhifeng Yang - Postdoc

Related Articles

Wildfire, smoke exposure, human health, and environmental justice need to be integrated into forest restoration and management.

D’Evelyn, S.M., Jung, J., Alvarado, E., Baumgartner, J., Caligiuri, P., Hagmann, R.K., Wilkins, J.L., et al. Wildfire, smoke exposure, human health, and environmental justice need to be integrated into forest restoration and management. (under review, Science Advances).

An evaluation of empirical and statistically based smoke plume injection height parametrisations used within an air quality models.

Wilkins, J. L., Pouliot, G., Pierce, T., Soja, A., Choi, H., Gargulinski, E., et al. 2022: An evaluation of empirical and statistically based smoke plume injection height parametrisations used within an air quality models. International Journal of Wildland Fire. https://doi.org/10.1071/WF20140.

Evaluation of Novel NASA MODIS and VIIRS Aerosol Products and Development of Air Quality Fire Ratio during Extreme Fire Events in the Western U.S. Journal of Geophysical Research.

Loria-Salazar, S.M., Sayer, A., Huang, J., Flynn, C., Lareau, N., Lee, J., Wilkins, J.L., et al. 2021: Evaluation of Novel NASA MODIS and VIIRS Aerosol Products and Development of Air Quality Fire Ratio during Extreme Fire Events in the Western U.S. Journal of Geophysical Research. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JD034180

A Multi-Analysis Approach for Estimating Regional Health Impacts from the 2017 Northern California Wildfires, Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association

O’Neill, S., Diao, M., Raffuse, S., Al-Hamdan, M., Barik, M., Jia, Y., Wilkins, J., et al. 2021: A Multi-Analysis Approach for Estimating Regional Health Impacts from the 2017 Northern California Wildfires, Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, DOI: 10.1080/10962247.2021.1891994.

Evaluation of stratospheric intrusions and biomass burning plumes on the vertical distribution of tropospheric ozone over the Midwestern U.S.

Wilkins, J. L., B. de Foy, A. M. Thompson, D. A. Peterson, E. J. Hyer, C. Graves, et al. 2020: Evaluation of stratospheric intrusions and biomass burning plumes on the vertical distribution of tropospheric ozone over the Midwestern U.S. J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos. 125:e2020JD032454. doi.org/10.1029/2020JD032454.