Linfeng Li joined the NSF Unidata Program Center as a student summer intern on May 19, 2025. Linfeng is a PhD student in Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering at the University of Michigan, where his research focus is in Planetary Sciences. “I am modeling the atmospheric dynamics of ice giants and lava planets, studying the potential intrinsic asymmetry of planetary atmosphere,” he says. “I've always been excited to learn how diverse and distinct the planetary environments are.”
While Linfeng is still exploring potential projects for his summer internship, his first weeks at the Program Center have found him focused on the software engineering project of improving the speed of MetPy data processing. He has been implementing some compute-intensive processes in the C++ programming language, replacing native interpreted Python code with compiled modules wrapped in a Python interface.
“The staff here are very patient in helping me get hands-on experience, even though I am new to many of the things Unidata does,” says Linfeng. “I've also been introduced to the Integrated Data Viewer (IDV), with which I can display geoscience data in a 3D visualization. Other fun projects include working with Machine Learning.”
“I am excited to expose myself to many new technologies and ideas, gain skills that can support my research, and contribute to these projects in ways that are beneficial to the geoscience community.”
Please join us in welcoming Linfeng to the Program Center for the summer!
