{"id":35,"date":"2023-02-09T18:01:29","date_gmt":"2023-02-09T18:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atmos.ucla.edu\/space\/?page_id=35"},"modified":"2026-09-10T20:50:56","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T20:50:56","slug":"personnel","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/atmos.ucla.edu\/space\/personnel\/","title":{"rendered":"Personnel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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UCLA Space Physics & AI Lab<\/p>\n

People behind the questions.<\/h2>\n

A collaborative community of researchers and students working across space physics, applied space weather, and machine intelligence for science.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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\"Jacob<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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Principal investigator<\/p>\n

Professor Jacob Bortnik<\/h2>\n

Professor Bortnik is a faculty member and the current chair of UCLA\u2019s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. He is the founding faculty director of the UCLA SPACE Institute<\/a>. His research connects plasma theory, spacecraft observations, modeling, and machine learning for physical science. He received the American Geophysical Union\u2019s 2021 Joanne Simpson Medal for Mid-Career Scientists<\/a> and is an AGU Fellow.<\/p>\n

View profile<\/a><\/div>
Google Scholar<\/a><\/div>
Curriculum vitae<\/a><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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Researchers<\/p>\n

Deep expertise across the program.<\/h2>\n
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\"Qianli<\/figure>

Qianli Ma<\/h3>

Associate Researcher<\/p>

Radiation belts \u00b7 Wave-particle interactions \u00b7 Earth and Jupiter<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Homayon<\/figure>

Homayon Aryan<\/h3>

Assistant Researcher<\/p>

Plasma waves \u00b7 Inner magnetosphere \u00b7 Applied space weather<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Ning<\/figure>

Ning Kang<\/h3>

Postdoctoral Scholar \u00b7 Group alumnus<\/p>

Wave-particle interactions \u00b7 Chorus waves \u00b7 Electron precipitation<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Sheng<\/figure>

Sheng Tian<\/h3>

Postdoctoral Scholar \u00b7 Jointly mentored<\/p>

Magnetosphere\u2013ionosphere coupling processes \u00b7 Jointly mentored with Professor Larry Lyons<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Graduate students<\/p>\n

The next generation of discovery.<\/h2>\n
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\"Dominique<\/figure><\/div>\n

Senior student spotlight<\/p>

Dominique \u201cNique\u201d Stumbaugh<\/h3>

Nique is completing her UCLA PhD after a distinguished record in electron-precipitation research, teaching, service, and leadership. Her honors include NASA FINESST, the AOS Bosart and Neiburger Awards, an AGU Outstanding Student Presentation Award, and UCLA\u2019s Distinguished Teaching Award for Teaching Assistants.<\/p>

View Nique\u2019s profile \u2192<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Ryoma<\/figure>

Ryoma Matsuura<\/h3>

PhD student \u00b7 Entering fourth year<\/p>

Cold-ion dynamics.<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

\"Jose<\/figure>

Jose Espinoza<\/h3>

PhD student \u00b7 Entering third year<\/p>

Plasma-sheet characteristics using GEOTAIL and THEMIS observations combined with machine learning.<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

\"Qiushuo<\/figure>

Qiushuo Wang<\/h3>

PhD student \u00b7 Entering third year<\/p>

Chorus source-region characteristics and AI-assisted discovery of partial differential equations.<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

\"Reiniery<\/figure>

Reiniery Villalta<\/h3>

Incoming PhD student \u00b7 First year<\/p>

Research interests and profile forthcoming.<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Undergraduate & pre-college researchers<\/p>

A place to begin doing science.<\/h2>

Jiahong Chen<\/strong> \u00b7 undergraduate researcher working with Ning Kang
Kanyen Chan<\/strong> \u00b7 undergraduate researcher working with Donglai Ma<\/p>\n

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\"Alexander<\/figure><\/div>\n

Alexander Perez<\/h3>

High school researcher \u00b7 Summer 2026<\/p>

Alexander tested AI as a personalized tutor by using ChatGPT to independently study college-level organic chemistry, finding that it offers flexible, patient support but works best alongside human teaching.<\/p>

Read the summer project report \u2192<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

Former group members<\/p>

Part of the lab\u2019s story.<\/h2>

Xiangning Chu<\/strong> \u00b7 former postdoctoral researcher; now a researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP)
Frances Staples \u00b7 Alexander Lozinski \u00b7 Jinxing Li \u00b7 Donglai Ma \u00b7 Xin An \u00b7 Man Hua \u00b7 Victor Pinto<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Could your next question begin here?<\/h2>

Learn about opportunities for graduate research, undergraduate projects, and scientific collaboration.<\/p><\/div>

About the lab<\/a><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UCLA Space Physics & AI Lab People behind the questions. A collaborative community of researchers and students working across space<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":159,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"front-page-no-banner.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atmos.ucla.edu\/space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/35","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atmos.ucla.edu\/space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atmos.ucla.edu\/space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atmos.ucla.edu\/space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/159"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atmos.ucla.edu\/space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35"}],"version-history":[{"count":88,"href":"https:\/\/atmos.ucla.edu\/space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/35\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":580,"href":"https:\/\/atmos.ucla.edu\/space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/35\/revisions\/580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atmos.ucla.edu\/space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atmos.ucla.edu\/space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atmos.ucla.edu\/space\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}