Jiachen Ding
Assistant Professor
Email: jdingali@nju.edu.cn
Office: School of Atmospheric Sciences building A504
Website: https://jdingali.github.io/
CV-Jiachen Ding-20260113.pdf
Research Overview
My research on radiative transfer and light scattering aims to improve the accuracy and efficiency of atmospheric measurement, remote sensing and climate/weather modeling, and deepen our understanding of the atmosphere and terrestrial environment.
I recently made a breakthrough in light scattering by homogeneous and two-layer spheroidal particles. Starting from Maxwell’s equations, I derived analytical solutions to optical properties of spheroids in the spheroidal coordinate system. Compared with previous studies, my new formulations are much more numerically stable, and the maximum applicable particle sizes is extended by more than 30 times. The applicable particle size range covers size distributions of all atmospheric aerosol particles. The new approach has been used to simulate optical properties of nonspherical particles such as coarse-mode aerosol and oceanic particles for radiative transfer parameterization in climate/weather models and remote sensing retrieval algorithms. The new approach can also model optical properties of interstellar dust for astronomical applications and biological cells facilitating biomedical optics research.
I developed a vector radiative transfer model (VRTM) and associated Jacobian computational model for a coupled atmosphere-land-ocean system, in support of remote sensing using radiometric and polarimetric observations. The VRTM was developed based on the state-of-the-art radiative transfer and light scattering theories and techniques, and is featured with high accuracy and efficiency. A recent update extended the applicability of the VRTM to partially oriented and chiral particles, which are commonly ignored in most of other VRTM. Numerical simulation shows that the reflectivity and polarization signatures of the oriented and chiral particles in the atmosphere are significant and can be detected with polarimeters in thermal infrared and circular polarization measurement.
My research also includes the study of optical and microphysical properties of ice clouds and dust aerosol employing satellite observations in visible, infrared and microwave bands. For example, I used a combination of spaceborne lidar and radiometer to constrain the microphysical and optical properties of cirrus clouds. I developed a temperature-dependent ice crystal optical properties in microwave frequencies for radar, and microwave and sub-millimeter radiometric remote sensing.
I am also interested in the applications of radiative transfer and light scattering techniques in other fields, such as planetary sciences and astronomy. A halo was observed on Mars in 2022. Based on my light scattering simulation results, we find that the halo was a result of a mixture of water and CO2 ice crystals. Using Monte Carlo approach, I developed a 3D radiative transfer model to infer interstellar dust properties from observations of a supernova. Based on the model, I developed an innovative method to estimate the distance between Earth and the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC).
Education
| • | Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences – 2019 – Texas A&M University |
| • | B.Sc. in Information Engineering (Optoelectronics)– 2014 – Nanjing University |
Employment
Assistant Professor, School of Atmospheric Sciences, Nanjing University, 2026.1–present
Assistant Research Scientist, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, 2022.12–2025.11
Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, 2019.6–2022.11
Research Interests
Atmospheric radiative transfer
Light and electromagnetic scattering
Atmospheric and oceanic remote sensing
Planetary atmosphere remote sensing
Interstellar dust measurement
Teaching interests
Atmospheric Radiation
Atmospheric Measurement
Planetary Atmosphere
Mathematical Methods in Physics
Numerical Methods
Selected Publications
| Ding, J., and P. Yang, 2025: Separation of Variables Method for Light Scattering by Two-Layer Spheroids with Size Parameters up to 1000, Optics Express, 33(19), 40532-40564. | |
| Ding, J., and P. Yang, 2025: Improving Numerical Stability of the Separation of Variables Method for Light Scattering by Spheroids with Size Parameters up to 1000, Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy & Radiative Transfer, 347, 109644. | |
| Ding, J., and P. Yang, 2023: Lorenz-Mie Theory-Type Solution for Light Scattering by Spheroids with Small-to-Large Size Parameters and Aspect Ratios, Optics Express, 31(24), 40937-40951. | |
| Ding, J., and P. Yang, 2023: Tangent-Linear and Adjoint Models for the Transfer of Polarized Radiation, Journal of Atmospheric Sciences, 80(1), 73-89. | |
| Ding, J., P. Yang, M. T. Lemmon, and Y. Zhang, 2023: Simulations of Halos Produced by Carbon Dioxide Ice Crystals in the Martian Atmosphere, Geophysical Research Letters, 50, e2023GL103457. | |
| Ding, J, P. Yang, and G. Videen, 2023: On the Relation Between Ice-Crystal Scattering Phase Function at 180° and Particle Size: Implication to Lidar-based Remote Sensing of Cirrus Clouds, Optics Express, 31(11), 18680-18692. | |
| Ding, J., Wang, L., Brown, P., and Yang, P., 2021: Radiative Transfer Modeling of An SN 1987A Light Echo —AT2019xis, The Astrophysical Journal, 919, 104. | |
| Ding, J., P. Yang, M. D. King, S. Platnick, X. Liu, K. G. Meyer, and C. Wang, 2019. A Fast Vector Radiative Transfer Model for the Atmosphere-Ocean Coupled System, Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy & Radiative Transfer, p.106667. | |
| Ding, J., P. Yang, R. E. Holz, S. Platnick, K. G. Meyer, M. A. Vaughan, Y. Hu, and M. D. King, 2016: Ice cloud backscatter study and comparison with CALIPSO and MODIS satellite data, Optics Express, 24, 620-636. | |
| Ding, J., M. Li, M. Tang, and Y. Song, 2013: BER performance of MSK in a ground-to-satellite laser uplink system under the influence of atmospheric turbulence and detector noise, Optics Letters, 38(18), 3488-3491. |
Awards, honors, positions and services
2025 Peter C. Waterman Award (young scientist award for theory and application of electromagnetic and light scattering), the 21th Electromagnetic and Light Scattering Conference
Book & Book Chapters
| 1) | Yang, P., J. Ding, M. Saito, and G. Kattawar, 2026: Physical-Geometric Optics for Light-Scattering by Nonspherical Particles: Applications to Remote Sensing and Climate Science. Cambridge University Press. |
| 2) | Yang, P., J. Ding, and G. Kattawar, 2023: Applications of Maxwell’s equations to light scattering by dielectric particles. Chapter 7 in Light, Plasmonics and Particles, Eds. M. Pınar Mengüç and Mathieu Francoeur, Elsevier. |
| 3) | Yang, P., J. Ding, and G. Kattawar, 2023: Maxwell's equations and particle single-scattering properties. Chapter 2 in Light, Plasmonics and Particles, Eds. M. Pınar Mengüç and Mathieu Francoeur, Elsevier. |
| 4) | Contribution to the Chapter 5 of “Sun, B., L. Bi, P. Yang, M. Kahnert, and G. Kattawar, 2019: Invariant Imbedding T-matrix Method for Light Scattering by Nonspherical and Inhomogeneous Particles, Elsevier.” |