Adam Sokol

Department: Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
Faculty Adviser: Stephan Fueglistaler
Year of Study:
Undergraduate School: Yale University
Undergraduate Major: Environmental Engineering

Personal Bio

I grew up close to Princeton (in Yardley, PA) and have just recently returned to the area to start a postdoc position doing research on Earth's climate. When I started college, I thought "doing research" just meant googling things. My first research experience came a couple of years later, after I had learned what people really meant when they used the term. After reading a research paper for a class I was taking, I randomly emailed the author (a professor at my school) and asked about research opportunities in her group. Little did I know that I know that I'd be pursuing similar research years later as a long-term career. I'm looking forward to chatting with undergrads about their own experiences navigating college, research, and their career aspirations -- maybe at one of the Princeton eating establishments I loved when I was growing up!

Fun Fact

After two cross-country road trips going to and from graduate school in Seattle, I've been to 49 states!

Research Pitch

I am an atmospheric scientist who studies the role of clouds and tropical storms in global climate and climate change. Clouds have long posed a challenge to our understanding of climate change; because they are too small to be captured by traditional climate models, we have trouble understanding how they respond to climate change and whether their response will lead to even more warming (a positive feedback) or slightly less warming (a negative feedback). Princeton's incredible computational resources allow us to run new, global climate models at such a fine scale that clouds can finally be captured and explicitly simulated. My research leverages these exciting resources to address some longstanding questions about how clouds and tropical storms respond to changes in surface temperature. The results will help us understand how clouds will shape the course of climate change and how the distribution of rainfall in the Tropics could change in the future. As you might expect, the answers could have some pretty huge implications for society.

Upcoming Programs That I Am Attending:

Plans for Summer 2025

Not available to participate in Summer ReMatch+ program.