Mike Larsen
Professor of Physics
Faculty Page
Dr. Larsen's faculty page with research and course information may be found here:
Education
B.Sc. Physics, Michigan Technological University, 2001
Ph.D. Physics, Michigan Technological University, 2006
Research Interests
Dr. Larsen studies atmospheric microphysics, which can broadly be described as properties and processes in the sky smaller than a deck of playing cards. He is active in the aerosol, cloud, and precipitation physics community and has focused primarily on rain measurement on the individual drop scale, cloud droplet spatial clustering measurements and implications, light transmission through correlated media, and novel laboratory experiments and atmospheric particle measurement systems.
Affiliations:
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Professor, 2023-present
Associate Professor 2016-2023
Assistant Professor 2010-2016
Michigan Technological University
Adjunct Professor, 2023-present
Adjunct Associate Professor, 2018-2023
Visiting Scholar, 2017-2018 (sabbatical), 2021 (summer scholar), 2022 (summer scholar)
National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellow (2003-2006)
University of Nebraska-Kearney
Assistant Professor, 2007-2010
Army Research Laboratory
Consultant, 2007-2009
NRC Postdoctoral Fellow, 2006-2007
NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center/NASA-Goddard Earth Science and Technology Center
Graduate Researcher in GSSP Summer Program, 2003
Selected Papers
Allwayin, N., M.L. Larsen, S. Glienke, and R.A. Shaw (2024). Locally Narrow Droplet Size Distributions are Ubiquitous in Stratocumulus Clouds. Science, 384(6695), 528—532. Doi:
Larsen, M.L., R.A. Shaw, A.B. Kostinski, and S. Glienke (2018). Fine-scale Droplet Clustering in Atmospheric Clouds: 3D Radial Distribution Function from Airborne Digital Holography. Physical Review Letters, 121, 204501. Doi:
Larsen, M.L., A.B. Kostinski, and A.R. Jameson (2015). Further Evidence for Super-Terminal Raindrops. Geophysical Research Letters, 41(19), 6914—6918. Doi:
Shaw, R.A., A.B. Kostinski, and M.L. Larsen (2002). Towards Quantifying Droplet Clustering in Clouds. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorologcal Society, 128(582), 1043—1057. Doi:
Jameson, A.R., M.L. Larsen, and A.B. Kostinski (2015). Disdrometer Network Observations of Finescale Spatial-Temporal Clustering in Rain. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 72(4), 1648—1666. Doi:
Larsen, M.L. and A.S. Clark (2014). On the Link Between Particle Size and Deviations from the Beer-Lambert-Bouguer Law for Direct Transmission. Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer, 133, 646—651. Doi:
Larsen, M.L. and A.B. Kostinski (2009). Simple Dead-Time Corrections for Discrete Time Series of Non-Poisson Data. Measurement Science and Technology, 20, 095101. Doi:
Larsen, M.L., A.B. Kostinski, and A. Tokay (2005). Observations and Analysis of Uncorrelated Rain. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 62(11), 40714083. Doi:
Larsen, M.L. (2007). Spatial Distributions of Aerosol Particles: Investigation of the Poisson Assumption. Journal of Aerosol Science, 38(8), 807—822. Doi:
Lata, N., J. Zhou, P. Hamilton, M.L. Larsen, S. Sarupria, and W. Cantrell (2020). Multivalent Surface Cations Enhance Heterogeneous Freezing of Water on Muscovite Mica. Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, 11, 8682—8689. Doi:
Awards
2022 Norine Noonen Sustained Achievement Award
2019 William V. Moore Distinguished Teacher-Scholar Award
2019 Gordon E. Jones Distinguished Achievement Award
2022-2023 Awarded NASA SCSG REAP Grant “Exploration of the Properties of Flash Frozen Raindrops”, $20,000
2020-2022 Awarded NASA SCSG REAP Grant “Investigation of Deviations from the Beer-Lambert-Bouguer Law in Laboratory-Generated Clouds”, $20,000
2019-2024 Awarded NSF Grant “”, $399,196
2018-2021 Awarded NSF Grant “”, $142,244
2015-2020 Awarded NSF Grant “”, $345,911
2012-2016 Awarded NSF Grant “”, $325,402
2011-2012 Awarded Cotrell College Science Award Grant “Absorption and Scattering in Correlated Random Media”, $35,000
Press & Media
Appeared in 2022 Documentary “”. Published by Cwnmi Da TV, MacTV, Below the Radar, and LIC. Distributed by TVF International. International Documentary Series sponsored by BBC UK and TG4 Ireland.
Work discussed in “Physics World”. (, Michael Allen, 2018)
Work discussed at Phys.org. (, Keley Christensen, 2018)
Work discussed in “Scale Daily”. (, Staff Writers, 2018)
Work discussed in “Live Science”. (, Jeanna Bryner, 2015)
Work discussed at IFLScience. (, Stephen Luntz, 2015)
Work discussed at Matzav.com. (, Andy Heller, 2015)
Work discussed in “Science News Explores”. (, Stephen Ornes, 2014)
Work discussed in “Science Magazine”. (, Sid Perkins, 2014)
Work discussed in “Science News”. (, Thomas Sumner, 2014)