New Faculty Welcome: Q&A with Bee Leung
August 28, 2025The Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOS) is thrilled to introduce Gabrielle “Bee” Leung to our team. She joins AOS as an Anna Julia Cooper postdoctoral fellow for the 2025-26 academic year and will be an assistant professor in fall 2026.
What is your hometown? Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Baguio City, which is a mountain city in the northern part of the Philippines. It’s one of the rainiest places in the Philippines (which is a very rainy country)!
What is your educational/professional background?
I got my undergraduate degree in physics and a minor in creative writing from Ateneo de Manila University. After that, I worked at the Manila Observatory doing applied atmospheric science research on projects like estimating how much public transit drivers are exposed to air pollution and predicting future changes in farmers’ heat stress exposure. I moved to the US in 2020 to start graduate school at Colorado State University (CSU), where I began working on cloud dynamics and microphysics. My MS focused on novel aspects of aerosol-cloud interactions, including how the spatial pattern of aerosol emissions impacts cloud formation. During my PhD, I studied how convective clouds and rain respond to simultaneous changes to aerosols and the land surface following deforestation.
What is your field of research, and how did you get into it?
I’m a cloud physicist and mesoscale meteorologist by training. My research looks at the physical processes driving land-aerosol-cloud interactions using numerical models, satellite observations, field campaign data, and object tracking.
I got into atmospheric science because I wanted to put my physics degree towards something that felt tangible to me. It turns out the atmosphere is full of problems that have both interesting physics and real-world implications! The more I learned about the atmosphere, the more I became interested in how coupled the Earth system is—a change to one component, like cutting down a forest in one area, can have far-reaching impacts on things like downstream rainfall and weather patterns.
What are the main goals of your current research?
The biggest goal of my research is to answer: where and when do human actions have the biggest impact on clouds? We know in general that things like changes to aerosol emissions and land cover can have an influence on clouds and rainfall. However, not all clouds are the same. I study how factors like the background meteorology and time of day impact which storms are most likely to respond to changes in aerosols and the land surface. This tells us which types of anthropogenic perturbations we should be most concerned about for clouds and rainfall, and where we should focus our attention to better understand the physics of how the atmosphere responds to human activities.
What attracted you to UW–Madison?
First and foremost, I wanted to come to UW–Madison because AOS is full of great people—from undergraduates to grad students to staff to faculty! I’m excited to work with and learn from people in this department, and to contribute towards this community. I’m also really looking forward to the many opportunities for collaboration, both within AOS and across campus.
What excites you about the Wisconsin RISE Initiative?
I’m most excited for all the interdisciplinary connections that are facilitated by the RISE Initiative. So many of the best ideas come from sharing insight across fields that may not immediately seem to be related, and I am looking forward to working with colleagues across UW–Madison to tackle some of the world’s biggest problems.
Do you have hobbies or interests outside of your work?
Outside of work, you’re most likely to find me either riding my bike or at the pottery studio. I’ve been making ceramics for the past three years, and though I’m definitely not an expert, I have an ever-growing collection of cloud sculptures, mugs, and pots.