ATLAS

About

Hello! We are the Atmospheric Turbulence and Land–Atmosphere Systems (ATLAS) Lab at the University of Houston.

We are experimentalists at heart. We like asking questions, building experiments, going into the field, and figuring out why the data did something we did not expect. Our work takes us from foggy islands and vegetated landscapes to wind tunnels and robotic systems, but we are always driven by curiosity about complex flows and the physics behind them.

ATLAS is also a team. We believe good science and having fun doing it should go together. We aim to create a collaborative environment where students can explore ideas, build things, break things (occasionally), and take ownership of their research.

People

Faculty

Kelly Y. Huang

Kalsi Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering
CV

Postdoctoral Scholars

Mahdi Farsi

Ph.D.

Graduate Students

Reban Niraula

Ph.D. Candidate

Hossein Motalebi

Ph.D. Student

Undergraduate Students

Sohan Bhamare

Gayathri Lakshmanan

Thomas Moreno

Visiting Scholars

Milo

Professor in String Theory

Dusty

Ph.D. Candidate in Materials Science

Pip

Ph.D. Candidate in Music Theory

Nathaniel Durand

B.S.

Alumni

2024
Evan Lin, HS Student
Eric Liu, HS Student
Filippo Pesenti, M.S.

2025
Emir Ancin, UG student
Neel Gupta, UG student
Christal Biney, UG student
Neha Hakeem, HS Student
Atharv Shukla, HS Student

2026
Ushanth Balasuriya, B.S.
Sonya Ortiz, B.S.
Heet Joshi, M.M.E.
Justin Amaya, UG student

Papers

F. Pesenti , H. Motalebi , R. Niraula , G. G. Katul, K. Y. Huang, Directional Dynamics of Fog: Irreversibility and Causal Coupling with Turbulence, Geophysical Research Letters (2026).

K. Y. Huang, R. Niraula, G. G. Katul, Scaling laws for the longitudinal turbulent heat flux in the atmospheric surface layer, Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres (2026).

H. J. S. Fernando et al., Fatima-GB: Searching Clarity within Marine Fog, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (2025).

T.J. Hintz, K. Y. Huang, S. W. Hoch, S. L. Bardoel, S. Gaberšek, I. Gultepe, J. Ruiz-Plancarte, E. Pardyjak, Q. Wang, and H. J. S. Fernando, A mechanism for coastal fog genesis at evening transition, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society (2024).

K. Y. Huang, M. K. Fu, C. Byers, G. G. Katul, and A. D. Bragg, Logarithmic scaling of higher-order temperature moments in the atmospheric surface layer, International Journal of Heat and Fluid Flow (2023).

K. Y. Huang, G. G. Katul, T. J. Hintz, J. Ruiz-Plancarte, and H. J. S. Fernando, Fog intermittency and criticality, Atmosphere (2023).

H.J.S. Fernando, S. Wang, K. Y. Huang, and E. Creegan, Fog-laden density staircases in marine atmospheric boundary layer, Environmental Fluid Mechanics (2023).

K. Y. Huang and G. G. Katul, Profiles of high-order moments of longitudinal velocity explained by the random sweeping decorrelation hypothesis, Physical Review Fluids (2022).

K. Y. Huang, G. G. Katul, and M. Hultmark, Velocity and temperature dissimilarity in the surface layer uncovered by the telegraph approximation, Boundary-Layer Meteorology (2021).

K. Y. Huang, C. E. Brunner, M. K. Fu, K. Kokmanian, T. Morrison, A. O. Perelet, M. Calaf, E. Pardyjak, and M. Hultmark, Investigation of the atmospheric surface layer using a novel high-resolution sensor array, Experiments in Fluids (2021).

Projects

Research in the ATLAS Lab explores how turbulence governs transport and exchange across environmental and engineered systems. We combine controlled laboratory experiments, field observations, high-resolution flow diagnostics, and data-driven and stochastic approaches to study processes spanning fundamental turbulence, land–atmosphere interactions, and sustainable and resilient technologies.

Land–Atmosphere & Boundary-Layer Processes

Multiscale Dynamics of Fog

Fog emerges from coupled interactions among turbulence, thermodynamics, microphysics, and surface forcing across a wide range of scales. Using field observations from the FATIMA–Grand Banks campaign, we study how fog forms, persists, and dissipates through analyses of intermittency, temporal irreversibility, and causal coupling with turbulence. We also develop instrumentation such as the Super Combo Probe to simultaneously resolve fine-scale turbulence and fog microphysics, with the broader goal of developing physically informed stochastic descriptions of fog dynamics.

Canopy Flows and Pressure-Driven Transport

Vegetation modifies atmospheric turbulence and mediates exchanges of momentum, heat, moisture, and trace gases between the land surface and atmosphere. Through complementary wind-tunnel and field experiments, we investigate how canopy structure shapes turbulent transport and how atmospheric pressure fluctuations and spatial pressure gradients can drive exchange within vegetated environments.

Fundamental Turbulence & Transport

Active Grid Turbulence and Nonlinear Interactions

Using an actively controlled wind-tunnel grid, we investigate how turbulence evolves when energy is deliberately introduced at multiple frequencies. Measurements at multiple downstream locations are combined with bispectral and bicoherence analysis to identify nonlinear coupling between frequency modes and track how these interaction networks emerge, evolve, and decay. The goal is to understand how imposed structure is transferred, reorganized, and ultimately lost as turbulent flows develop.

Turbulent Heat Transport

Turbulent heat transport in the atmospheric surface layer emerges from motions spanning a wide range of scales, but the longitudinal component has received far less attention than the vertical component. Using field measurements from SLTEST and the Duke Forest Grass Clearing, we investigate how heat transport is distributed across scales and organized into intermittent turbulent events. Our work combines spectral and cospectral analysis, scaling arguments, and event-based approaches such as quadrant analysis to identify the structures responsible for heat transport and determine how their contributions change with atmospheric stability and flow conditions.

Sustainable & Resilient Engineering Systems

Effects of Blade Helicity on Vertical-Axis Wind Turbine Wakes

This project investigates how blade helicity modifies the wake dynamics of vertical-axis wind turbines. Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) is used to measure spatially resolved velocity fields and quantify wake recovery, velocity deficit, flow asymmetry, momentum transport, and coherent vortical structures downstream of different turbine configurations. The work aims to identify how blade geometry influences aerodynamic performance and wake development, with implications for turbine and wind-farm design.

Second Wind: Repurposing Decommissioned Wind Turbine Blades

Second Wind explores how decommissioned wind turbine blades can be repurposed for new structural and engineering applications rather than sent to landfills. Our work examines both the performance and environmental implications of blade reuse, including their response to environmental loading and the potential degradation or release of composite constituents during long-term exposure. The broader goal is to establish where repurposed blades can provide safe, durable, and sustainable alternatives to conventional materials while extending the useful life of existing composite structures.

RESTORE: Robotic Expeditionary Spray Technology for On-Demand Repair & Enhancement

RESTORE is developing an autonomous scan-to-repair framework for restoring damaged metallic components using robot-integrated cold spray. The system combines 3D scanning, damage identification, geometric reconstruction, robotic path planning, material deposition, and post-repair verification to enable adaptive repairs of complex and previously unseen damage. By allowing high-value components to be restored rather than replaced, the project advances autonomous maintenance while extending component service life and improving system resilience.

Positions

We currently have no openings.

Posts

5/17/26 The lab welcomes the summer at Lake Livingston!

4/9/26 Lab members Nathaniel, Ushanth, and Isabella present their research at UH's Undergraduate Research Day.

12/06/25 First gig for N65! Lab members Nathaniel, Reban, and Emir on stage as part of the Hurricane Melissa Relief Benefit Concert at Lucian’s, with the lab cheering from the crowd!

11/24/25 Presenting and volunteering at APS DFD in our home court!

5/24/25 The lab wraps up the spring semester with a day at the Space Center and Sylvan Beach, where soccer was played.

12/9/24 Pew pew! The ATLAS lab had a joint end-of-semester event with the AIM lab.

12/3/24 Congratulations to Filippo Pesenti on a successful Masters thesis defense!

8/17/24 The lab celebrates the end of summer!

Elements

i = 0;

while (!deck.isInOrder()) {
    print 'Iteration ' + i;
    deck.shuffle();
    i++;
}

print 'It took ' + i + ' iterations to sort the deck.';