Jeff Lapierre Email & Phone Number

Germantown, Md

Charlottesville, Va

During my postdoc, I used my knowledge of lightning to study its production of NOx (NO+NO2), precursors to ozone, and an important greenhouse gas. Understanding this source of NOx is especially critical since it is produced in the upper troposphere, where it is longer lived than in the boundary layer. Lightning production of NOx is still poorly constrained, which impacts the effectiveness of climate models. My goal is to better understand the driving physical parameters of lightning NOx production to better constrain the production rate of NOx per flash. I also worked on outfitting a vehicle with instruments that measured various greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, ozone, and methane. The goal for this project was to develop a mobile instrument that can be easily mounted to a vehicle for use in areas where greenhouse gas measurements are sparse, such as rapidly growing cities in developing countries, so that we can better understand their production.

Socorro, Nm

Developed an array of nine electric field sensors that is useful for determining charge polarity and magnitude for a wide variety of lightning processes. My responsibilities included setting up of wireless links and solar power, designing, building, and testing circuits (e.g. filtering, signal modification), developing calibration techniques, and writing code for data processing and analysis. Lightning protection was an important part of the development and proper shielding and grounding was carefully designed. For the past three years, I have been tasked with keeping LEFA operational.

Socorro, Nm

Deployed microphones sensitive to both infrasonic and audio frequencies to map lightning channels in three spatial dimensions.

Socorro, Nm

Developed a three antenna interferometer operating at radio frequencies to map lighting in two spatial dimensions with microsecond time resolution. Designed, tested, and debugged circuitry and mechanical parts for the antennas. Characterized the noise and spectral content of RF antennas. Performed time domain reflectometry to measure the time delays through each antenna system. Developed software trigger for data acquisition. Performed Fourier transform techniques to convert raw waveforms to source locations.

Doctor Of Philosophy (Phd), Atmospheric Physics And Instrumentation

Activities and Societies: Captain of the Physics Basketball team, Vice President of the Street Hockey ClubMy research concerns continuing.

Bachelor Of Applied Science (B.A.Sc.), Physics