Jian Du-Caines
Jian Du-Caines

When the University of Louisville and Clemson University clash in one of this year’s most anticipated college football games Saturday, two researchers at the schools won’t be feeling the same animosity toward their ACC rival. UofL assistant professor of physics Jian Du-Caines and Clemson atmospheric physics professor Jens Oberheide are working together on a research project funded by NASA. Du-Caines says the two have been friends since they met at the University of New Brunswick, Canada, in 2005 and began talking about doing a project together.

In 2014, Du-Caines won a highly competitive, 3-year $394,000 grant from NASA to study the variability of tides in the atmosphere between earth and space.

“We want to be able to better forecast weather in space,” Du-Caines says. “The variability of tides is a piece of the puzzle we have to solve to be able to accurately predict day to day weather in space.”

Du-Caines says forecasting weather in space is about as accurate as forecasting weather on earth 50 years ago.

As part of the study, Clemson’s Oberheide is analyzing satellite data to see if it validates the model UofL’s Du-Caines is using to understand the variability of tides (a kind of large-scale wave similar to the Jet Stream) in space. The research is important, according to Du-Caines, to more clearly predict when storms or bad weather above the earth’s atmosphere might impact GPS, power grids, suborbital flights or satellites.

Du-Caines says she and Oberheide are more concerned about their research than what will be happening on the football field.

“We just laugh about it,” Du-Caines says, “though I wish we (UofL) would have won last year!”    

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Mark Hebert
Following a 28-year career as a radio and television reporter, Mark Hebert joined the University of Louisville as the Director of Media Relations in 2009, serving as the main spokesperson. In 2015, Mark was named Director of Programming and Production. He’s now producing and hosting a radio show about “all things UofL”, overseeing the university’s video and TV productions and promoting UofL’s research operation. Mark is best known for his 22 years as the political and investigative reporter for WHAS-TV in Louisville where he won numerous awards for breaking stories, exposing corruption and objectively covering Kentucky politics. In 2014, Mark was inducted into the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame.