James Yoon Email and Phone Number

My research centers around detecting and modeling biogenic isoprene emissions and mixing ratios. By using 0D and 3D atmospheric chemistry models coupled with satellite and in-situ remote sensing data, my work bridges atmospheric chemistry with plant physiology and the carbon cycle.

As part of an summer and winter internship with Dr. Stan Sander and Dr. Zhao-Cheng Zeng at JPL and Caltech, I visualized methane and carbon dioxide mixing ratios using infrared spectra obtained from Mt. Wilson's California Laboratory for Atmospheric Remote Sensing (CLARS) to identify days and locations with recurrent high methane events. I then corroborated this spectroscopic data to GIS (TROPOMI) and Los Angeles Megacity in-situ measurements to verify these events. Finally, I explored accounting for aerosol effects on CLARS-FTS data using principal component analysis, regression, and machine learning on Python.

Go For Broke National Education Center is a non-profit in Los Angeles's Little Tokyo that honors and celebrates the Japanese American veterans who served in WWII despite incarceration and widespread anti-Japanese sentiment. As the Getty Marrow Collections Intern, I scanned and digitized submitted archival materials, including photo albums and documents, to add to the organization's digital collections. For my final project, I recorded the demographics and metadata for 900+ oral histories in the Hanashi Oral History Collection and visualized the data using Tableau and Voyant Tools. I also conducted heuristic analysis on the website's UX/UI and accessibility and piloted ArcGIS storymaps to revamp the website's history content.

In the Stutz Group, I investigated turbulent surface mixing's effect on nitrous acid (HONO) chemistry in the troposphere through the PACT-1D atmospheric model. I presented these results at the 2020 AGU Fall Meeting, UCLA Undergraduate Research Showcase, and the Southern California Photochemistry Symposium. I also conducted preliminary work in developing a furfural chemistry and photolysis scheme on the PACT-1D model.

The UCLA Undergraduate Science Journal is a student-run, peer-reviewed annual scientific publication. As the Managing Editor of Editorial Board (2020-2021), I managed a team of 22 editors to edit submitted articles, created curriculum on scientific writing, citation formatting, and the editor-author relationship, and also worked with authors directly to edit their articles for clarity. As Co-Editor in Chief (2021-2022), I oversaw the article submission and staff recruitment process, helped lead our weekly seminars during Winter Quarter, and facilitated communication among our three boards.

The Learning Assistant (LA) Program at UCLA allows undergraduates who have previously taken a course to facilitate 20-30 student discussion sections or labs alongside graduate student TAs and course instructors. LAs learn about collaborative learning and inclusive pedagogy during our quarterly seminar and apply these skills in large introductory STEM courses.I LA'd for Physics 4BL (Electromagnetism Laboratory - 4 sections total), Physics 4AL (Mechanics Laboratory - 1 section), Physics 1C (Electrodynamics, Optics, Special Relativity - 2 sections), and Chemistry 113A (Quantum Chemistry - 1 section). In addition, I mentored new physics laboratory LAs as a pedagogy head LA and helped professors and TAs implement LAs in Physics 1C and 4AL/4BL as a logistics head LA.As a Program Development Team (PDT) member (Spring 2021-Spring 2022), I worked in a team of eight other experienced LAs to manage the program's overall logistics. I directly managed 60+ pedagogy head LAs every quarter, proposed changes to streamline and enhance the quarterly pedagogy seminar, revamped the program's instagram, and maintained Javascript code on Google Forms to send feedback to 600+ LAs multiple times a quarter. I also helped expand the program to physical chemistry (Chem 20A/Chem 113A), biochemistry (Chem 153A), and earth science (EPSS 71/171) courses.