Lai-yung Ruby Leung

Leung completed her research dissertation at PNNL in 1989 before beginning her career as a research associate in 1991.[3] She then worked as a staff scientist and senior scientist before becoming a laboratory fellow in 2004 and a Battelle Fellow in 2017.[3] Her current research focuses on the dynamics of various land-atmosphere interactions as well as hydrological cycles. Her team at PNNL was the first group of researchers to link soot deposition with snowpack availability in the western United States.[6] They also found that the primary cause of intense hurricanes is a climate cycle known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO).[7][8]

Along with other PNNL scientists, Leung contributed to the assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that jointly won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 with Albert Arnold.[1][9] As a contributing author of the report's Regional Climate Projections, she helped disseminate the knowledge on the consequences of anthropogenic activities in global warming.[10][11]

In 2016, Leung was appointed as the chief climate scientist of the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E³SM), previously known as the Accelerated Climate Modeling for Energy (ACME) project, by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).[12][13] By shifting climate models from global to a regional scale, Leung and her team enhanced the efficiency of computational modeling.[1][14] The model provides twice as much as details than the previous simulations and further allows for focusing on local climate effects.[14] Leung's leadership was crucial in investigating climate change through the perspectives of various Earth System components including hydrological and biogeochemical cycles as well as cryosphere-ocean systems.[12][14][15] She is currently working on Phase II of the project that is expected to be completed by 2021.[16]

Leung is an editor of the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Hydrometeorology [17] and the American Geophysical Union's Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmosphere.[18] She is co-chair of the Science Advisory Board Climate Working Group at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).[19] She is also a member of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Research Applications Board[20] and the Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee (BERAC).[21] In the past, she served on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (BASC)[22] and was a member of the Science Steering Committee for the Community Earth System Models.[23]

As a part of BERAC, Leung organized a workshop entitled 'Second Atmospheric River Tracking Method Inter-comparison Project' where participants from the U.S. Federal Agencies, national laboratories, and U.S. and international universities attended.[24] The workshop provided guidance on utilizing algorithms to understand the uncertainties of atmospheric river science.[25][26] She has also organized several workshops and seminars sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA),[27] DOE,[28] NOAA [29] and National Science Foundation (NSF).[30]