PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Po-Lun Ma

Po-Lun Ma is an atmospheric scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory who works on aerosols and clouds in Earth system models, and on the machine-learning datasets and emulators built around them. He studied atmospheric sciences at National Taiwan University, earned a PhD in Earth and Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins University in 2010, and went on to join PNNL. The Department of Energy's ACME project gave him an Outstanding Contribution Award in 2016 for tuning and validating ACME version 1. He is one of the authors of ClimSim, a dataset of 5.7 billion pairs of input and output vectors that won a NeurIPS 2023 Outstanding Datasets and Benchmarks Paper award in the dataset category, and in 2024 the EAGLES project, with him as principal investigator, reported 11 new particle formation pathways in Nature. He is an Earth scientist at PNNL who leads a multi-institutional effort that builds an aerosol and cloud dataset for artificial intelligence and machine learning methods.

Timeline

  1. 1999–2010

    Degrees from Taipei to Baltimore

    He earns a B.S. in atmospheric sciences at National Taiwan University in 1999, then an M.S. in atmospheric sciences there and an M.S.E.L. (cum laude) at Vermont Law School, both in 2002. He completes a Ph.D. in Earth and Planetary Sciences at Johns Hopkins University in 2010.

  2. 2012–2014

    Aerosol liaison for CESM

    After earning his doctorate, he joins Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where he works on aerosol-cloud-climate interactions, climate model evaluation and uncertainty quantification. From 2012 to 2014, he is Aerosol Liaison for the CESM Chemistry-Climate Working Group.

  3. 2016

    An ACME contribution award

    In 2016, the Department of Energy's Accelerated Climate Modeling for Energy (ACME) project gives him an Outstanding Contribution Award for his work to tune and validate the atmosphere and coupled ACME v1 systems. He completes 250 simulations in four months.

  4. 2023

    ClimSim, an outstanding dataset

    He is one of the authors of ClimSim, a dataset of 5.7 billion pairs of multivariate input and output vectors from multi-scale climate simulations, built for hybrid ML-physics research. The paper receives an Outstanding Datasets and Benchmarks Paper award in the dataset category at NeurIPS in 2023.

  5. 2024

    EAGLES and a Nature paper

    As principal investigator of the PNNL project EAGLES, he works with a team that integrates 11 new particle formation pathways into a global climate model. The results appear in Nature in June 2024, with him among the coauthors.

  6. July 2024

    Computer time on Frontier

    In July 2024, PNNL announces that his EAGLES project has won 1.6 million node hours of computer time on Frontier. It is the fourth time he has received such an award, and all three earlier ones were also for EAGLES.

  7. 2025

    The NeuralMie aerosol emulator

    With A.V. Geiss, he publishes NeuralMie (v1.0), an aerosol optics emulator, in Geoscientific Model Development in 2025.

  8. As of October 2026

    Earth scientist at PNNL

    He is an Earth scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where he leads a multi-institutional effort that combines atmospheric science, computational science, data science and software engineering. The team produces a large dataset of aerosols, clouds and meteorology from high-resolution models and observations, as a foundation for artificial intelligence and machine learning methods.

Career

  1. NowOffice of ScienceEarth scientist
  2. 2012–2014CESM Chemistry-Climate Working GroupAerosol Liaison

Education

  1. 2010Johns Hopkins UniversityPh.D.
  2. 2002National Taiwan UniversityM.S.
  3. 2002Vermont Law SchoolM.S.E.L.
  4. 1999National Taiwan UniversityB.S.

From the biography.

  1. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Po-Lun Ma. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  2. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes United States Department of Energy. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  3. 84% of people shaping AI with recorded undergraduate and doctoral schools changed institutions for their doctorateIncludes National Taiwan University. 84% of people shaping AI with recorded undergraduate and doctoral schools changed institutions for their doctorate. Across 2,116 people with both an undergraduate degree and a doctorate recorded, we trace which undergraduate schools feed which doctoral programs, how often students stay at the same school, and how paths differ by birth-country region.
  4. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes Johns Hopkins University. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.

Sources and credits

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  1. Po-Lun Ma, PhD | PNNL pnnl.gov. Checked 22 October 2026.
  2. Po-Lun Ma Honored with DOE Commendation | Feature | PNNL pnnl.gov. Checked 22 October 2026.
  3. ClimSim: A large multi-scale dataset for hybrid physics-ML climate emulation proceedings.neurips.cc. Checked 22 October 2026.
  4. Announcing the NeurIPS 2023 Paper Awards – NeurIPS Blog blog.neurips.cc. Checked 22 October 2026.
  5. 16 Papers Accepted To NeurIPS 2023 | Department of Computer Science, Columbia University cs.columbia.edu. Checked 22 October 2026.
  6. Born to Modulate: Researchers Reveal Origins of Climate-Controlling Particles | Feature | PNNL pnnl.gov. Checked 22 October 2026.
  7. Global variability in atmospheric new particle formation mechanisms | Nature nature.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  8. PNNL Scientists Tap Nation’s Fastest Computers to Explore Critical Science Questions | News Release | PNNL pnnl.gov. Checked 22 October 2026.