The McKinnon group


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Karen McKinnon

Associate Professor, UCLA → JHU (Nov 2026)

Karen McKinnon is a professor of Statistics and the Environment at the University of California, Los Angeles. Beginning in November 2026, she will join the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering in the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Her research sits at the nexus of climate change and statistics, and is aimed at improving our understanding and prediction of climate extremes, variability, and change. She is a 2027 American Meteorological Society Henry G. Houghton Awardee, a 2024 NSF CAREER awardee, a 2023 Kavli Fellow, and a 2021 Packard Fellow in Science and Engineering, and she has served as an advisor for both city governments and private companies regarding climate change. Prof. McKinnon received her B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from Harvard University, as well as an M.Sc. from Victoria University of Wellington. She was an Advanced Study Program post-doc at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and an Applied Scientist at Descartes Labs before joining UCLA.

Email: kmckinnon at ucla dot edu; karen dot mckinnon at jhu dot edu
CV
Google Scholar
LinkedIn

Fucheng Yang

Postdoctoral scholar, Institute of the Environment and Sustainability

Fucheng Yang is a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles. His previous research focused on advancing the understanding of the seasonal cycle of temperature and improving model representations of hydrological variability. He is broadly interested in how atmospheric dynamics and land-surface processes interact to shape hydrological and thermal variability across temporal scales. His current work investigates the mechanisms that control heat extremes over land from both energetic and dynamical perspectives.

Email: fyang58 at ucla dot edu

Nathan Hwangbo

Postdoctoral scholar, Statistics and Data Science

Nathan is a postdoctoral scholar focused on developing models for changes in heat extremes, and their links to aerosols. His PhD research in the group was focused on better understanding long-term climate variability, using tree ring data to develop Bayesian models for climate reconstruction before the widespread use of meteorological instruments.

Email: nhwangbo at ucla dot edu

Madeleine Beckner

Fifth year graduate student, Statistics and Data Science

Mady is a fifth-year PhD student in the Department of Statistics and Data Science at UCLA. Her current research interests involve leveraging statistical methodology to improve and inform land-atmosphere interaction models.

Email: mbeckner at ucla dot edu

Alumni

Talia Anderson, NOAA C&GC Postdoctoral Fellow. Now an Assistant Professor of Geography at University of Minnesota.
Kyle McEvoy, Statistics PhD (2026). Now a biostatistician at Abbott Laboratories.
Suqin Duan, IoES post-doc. Now an Assistant Project Scientist at UCLA working with Prof. David Neelin.
Wenwen Kong, IoES post-doc. Now a Data Scientist at Studio X.
Sam Baugh, Statistics PhD (2022). Now an Assistant Professor of Statistics at PSU.
Surabhi Agrawal, Statistics MS (2022). Now a Data Scientist at Pacific Life.
Kristen Fukunaga, Mathematics BS (2021). Now a master's student at UW Statistics.
Dhruv Chakraborty, Computational Mathematics BS (2021). Now a Product Scientist at Indeed.com.
Avery Robinson, Statistics BS (2021). Now at Silicon Valley Bank.
Stephanie Doe, Applied Mathematics BS (2021). Now a Data Scientist at MOBE.
Russell Horowitz, IoES Master's (2021). Now a PhD student at the Basque Centre for Climate Change.
Chris Reed, IoES BS (2020). Now a Data Analyst at wikiHow.
Pete Jourgensen, Computer Science Master's degree (2019). Now a Data Scientist at Deep 6 AI.





Join the group

Information for all prospective group members

Research in the Climate Intelligence Lab is on the physical climate system, including the development of novel statistical and machine learning methodologies to answer scientific questions about the climate system. A strong quantitative background (including in statistics, computer science, physics, and applied math) is strongly encouraged, and is more important than a background in earth or atmospheric science specifically. Research areas include weather extremes (heat, humidity, precipitation), wildfire, internal variability across timescales, land/atmosphere interactions, and the climate response to human influences.

Prospective undergraduate students

At this time, I am not able to take on undergraduate students in the group. Please check back in later!

Prospective graduate students

I am currently seeking two fully-funded PhD students to join the Lab at Johns Hopkins University! One of the positions will focus on variability and extremes in AI weather and climate emulators, and could include additional foci on uncertainty quantification, mechanistic evolution of weather extremes, and/or S2S predictions. The second position will focus on climatic controls and projections of western US hydroclimate, including wildfire, drought, and streamflow. The research will rely on developing predictive, causal models using historical observations, and identifying robust future changes using climate models. Please see the full ad here for more information and relevant qualifications. Apply through the Whiting School of Engineering Environmental Engineering program. I will interview strong candidates in the winter.

Prospective post-docs

I am currently hiring a postdoctoral fellow to work at the intersection of AI and climate. Please see the full ad here for more information. Application review will begin on September 10, and the position could begin as soon as November 1. In addition, I am happy to discuss serving as a host for postdoctoral fellowships if you would like to spend time in the Lab. In your email, please include the fellowship(s) you are interested in applying to, your CV, and a paragraph or two about your background, research interests, and goals for your postdoc. Some potential funding sources for post-docs are the NOAA Global Change post-doc, the NSF Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (U.S. citizens, nationals, and permanent residents), the NSF Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (U.S. citizens, nationals, and permanent residents), the Schmidt Science Fellows (focused on interdisciplinary research, requiring a university nomination, with applications due during the summer), the Fulbright Visiting Scholar Program (international scholars), the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Postdoctoral Fellowship (Europeans only), and the Johns Hopkins Data Science and AI Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship. For those interested in climate change impacts to ecosystems, the USGS Climate Adaptation Postdoctoral Fellows Program may also be of interest. For those abroad, there are also country-specific mobility schemes to support research in the US, such as the SNSF Postdoc.Mobility for those in Switzerland and the Canada Postdoctoral Research Award program for Canadians. (This is not a complete list.)