Education

Sep 2021 – Present Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
University of California, Los Angeles
Thesis Proposal: “Constrain Oceanic Mesoscale Energy Dissipation”; Advisors: Profs. Andrew Stewart and James McWilliams
(Dec. 2026 expected degree completion, Dec. 2024 candidacy, Dec. 2023 M.S.)
Sep 2018 – Dec 2019 M.S. in the Graduate Institute of Hydrological and Oceanic Sciences
National Central University, Taiwan
Thesis: “A UAV-RTK-Lidar system measurements of wave energy dissipation over a sandy beach and an algal-reef area”; Advisor: Prof. Zhi-Cheng Huang
Sep 2014 – Jun 2018 B.S. in the Department of Earth Sciences
National Central University, Taiwan

Peer-Reviewed Publications

  1. Yeh, C. Y., A. L. Stewart, J. C. McWilliams, in prep: Satellite- and Argo-Constrained Global Estimates of Near-Seafloor Mesoscale Eddy Kinetic Energy and Bottom Drag Dissipation Rates. To be submitted to GRL; preprint available upon request.
  2. Yeh, C. Y., A. L. Stewart, J. C. McWilliams, 2026: Regimes of oceanic mesoscale energy dissipation at western boundaries. Journal of Physical Oceanography, 56, 759–780, https://doi.org/10.1175/JPO-D-25-0059.1.
  3. Huang, Z., C. Yeh, K. Tseng, and W. Hsu, 2018: A UAV-RTK Lidar system for wave and tide measurements in coastal zones. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 35, 1557–1570, https://doi.org/10.1175/JTECH-D-17-0199.1.

Fellowship and Computational Support

Sep 2021 – Jun 2024 Government Scholarship to Study Abroad, $147,000, Ministry of Education, Taiwan
Apr 2025 – Jun 2025 J Yang Fellowship, $14,000, Asia Pacific Center, University of California, Los Angeles
May 2025 – May 2026 “EES250071: Using Machine Learning and Satellite Measurement to Estimate Global Bottom Drag Dissipation”, 200,000 ACCESS credits, EXPLORE Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services & Support (ACCESS), P.I. Cheng Yang Yeh

Honors and Awards

  • Outstanding Student Presentation Award, California Geophysical Fluid Dynamics (CalGFD) meeting, 2023, Scripps, La Jolla, CA
  • Young Scientist Award, The 9th Chinese-German Joint Symposium on Hydraulic and Ocean Engineering, 2018, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan
  • Youth Forum 3rd Award, Taiwan Ocean Science Conference, 2019, Taipei, Taiwan
  • Poster 2nd Award, Taiwan Ocean Science Conference, Taipei, Taiwan
  • Best Student Award, National Central University, 2019 Fall semester (60 students awarded per semester in the university)
  • Academic Award Scholarship, Department of Earth Sciences, National Central University

Academic Service

Leadership activities: Chair of the Marine Center Graduate Student and Postdoctoral Network, Marine Center, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Sep 2023 – Jun 2026
Committee: 270 Seminar Committee, Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOS), UCLA, Sep 2023 – Jun 2026
Conference services: CalGFD Conference Organizing Team, 2024, 2025, 2026
Public Outreach: Research Night Panel speaker, AOS, UCLA, Oct 2023
Rotating tank demonstration, Explore Your Universe Science Fair, UCLA, Nov 2023

Professional Skills and Published Tools

MATLAB, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics (Rossby wave dynamics, shallow water theory, quasi-geostrophic theory, isopycnal coordinate, energy budget), MATLAB Parallel Computing, Global current-meter dataset GMACMD (Scott et al. 2010, 2011) analysis, rotating tank, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle techniques, Fourier analysis, surface waves theory, CFD, empirical orthogonal function analyses, EOF_vertical (github.com/sunnyyeh3725/EOF_vertical)

Employment

Jan 2022 – Present Graduate Student Researcher (Appointment during quarters not assigned to teaching)
PI: Andrew Stewart and James McWilliams
Teaching Assistant (Fall 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, Class: AOS103)
PI: Andrew Stewart
Appointments are in Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, UCLA
Sep 2020 – Jun 2021 Research Assistant, COAST group PI: Zhi-Cheng Huang, Graduate Institute of Hydrological and Oceanic Sciences, National Central University
Dec 2019 – Mar 2020 Research Assistant, COAST group PI: Zhi-Cheng Huang, National Central University
Jan 2016 – Feb 2016 Full-time Internship, Sinotech Engineering Consultants, Ltd., Taipei, Taiwan

Seminar Talks

Formal:
AOS, UCLA, “How Ocean Energy Dissipates: Perspectives from Model Simulations and Global Observations”, May 2026
Institute of Oceanography, National Taiwan University, “An idealized framework and global data approach to constrain oceanic mesoscale energy dissipation”, January 2026
Department of Atmospheric Science, National Central University, “An idealized framework and global data approach to constrain oceanic mesoscale energy dissipation”, January 2026
Department of Ocean Science, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, “Regimes of oceanic mesoscale energy dissipation at western boundaries”, March 2024
Informal:
CRIOS group, PI: Patrick Heimbach, Oden Institute & Jackson School of Geosciences, UT Austin, “Regimes of Oceanic Mesoscale Energy Dissipation at Western Boundaries”, July 2026
ODSL group, PI: Jinbo Wang, Department of Oceanography, Texas A&M University, “Satellite- and Argo-Constrained Global Estimates of Near-Seafloor Mesoscale Eddy Kinetic Energy and Bottom Drag Dissipation Rates”, July 2026
ODSL group, PI: Jinbo Wang, Department of Oceanography, Texas A&M University, “Constraining Oceanic Mesoscale Energy Dissipation”, July 2025
Institute of Oceanography, National Taiwan University, “Regimes of oceanic mesoscale energy dissipation at western boundaries”, Mar 2024

Teaching

The Physical Oceanography TA is a weekly discussion class in the quarter system at the University of California, Los Angeles. The Earth Hydrological Cycle TA is a weekly quiz TA sessions in the semester system at National Central University, Taiwan. The AOS Summer Lecture is a week of oceanic topic discussion for new incoming Ph.D. students. The Class Guest Lecture is a 75-minute UCLA upper-division lecture. The Lecture for UAV and Pix4D Image Processing is a 1-unit undergraduate class I designed and taught in the semester at the National Central University.

Teaching Assistant: Physical Oceanography (Upper-division) — Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024, Fall 2025
Earth Hydrological Cycle (Upper-division) — Spring 2018, Spring 2019
AOS Summer Lecture — Summer 2022
Class Guest Lecture: Physical Oceanography (Upper-division) — Fall 2023 (Eddies and Turbulence), Fall 2024 and 2025 (Internal Waves)
Lecture: UAV and Pix4D Image Processing (Undergraduate) — Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Spring 2021

Mentorship

Research: Gabrielle Barnes, “Using Machine Learning and Satellite Measurement to Estimate Global Bottom Drag Dissipation”, July 2026 – presnet
Aisha Mardini, “Using Machine Learning and Satellite Measurement to Estimate Global Bottom Drag Dissipation”, May 2025 – Jun 2026
Tanner Shinkle, “Observing Surface Submesoscale Flows with Unmanned Aerial Drones”, Oct 2023 – Jun 2024
Academic: Sofia Barreras, Apr 2026 – present
Yuzuna Kudo, Sep 2024 – Jun 2026
Elena Dworak, Sep 2023 – Jun 2024
Athena Ansyah, Sep 2021 – Jun 2023

Workshops

  1. “NASA Ocean AI Workshop”, Caltech, Pasadena, May 19th – 21st 2025

Selected Conference Abstracts

  1. “Estimating global ocean bottom drag dissipation via Empirical Orthogonal Function analysis”, Ocean Science Meeting, Glasgow, Scotland, Feb 23rd – 27th 2026
  2. “Estimating global ocean bottom drag dissipation via Empirical Orthogonal Function analysis”, Climate Processing Team Annual Meeting, New York University (online presentation due to UCLA travel ban), Aug 13th – 15th 2025
  3. “Constraining Global Oceanic Mesoscale Energy Dissipation: The Role of the Ocean Bottom”, UCLA Marine Center Annual Meeting, Jun 12th 2025
  4. “Regimes of oceanic mesoscale energy dissipation at western boundaries”, Climate Processing Team Annual Meeting, Brown University, Providence, RI, Aug 14th – 16th 2024
  5. “Regimes of oceanic mesoscale energy dissipation at western boundaries”, Ocean Science Meeting, New Orleans, LA, Aug 18th – 23rd 2024
  6. “Regimes of oceanic mesoscale energy dissipation at western boundaries”, CalGFD 2023, Scripps, La Jolla, CA
  7. “Regimes of oceanic mesoscale energy dissipation at western boundaries”, UCLA Marine Center Annual Meeting, May 22th 2023
  8. “A UAV-RTK-Lidar system measurements of wave energy dissipation over a sandy beach and an algal-reef area”, Coastal Engineering No. 36v, doi.org/10.9753/icce.v36v.waves.34, youtu.be/fBLbsBuK4AA, 2020
  9. “Understanding the variations of sand coverage on a reef system in the intertidal zone of Taoyuan coast using airborne imagery techniques”, 2019AGUFMEP11E2086H, 2019 AGU Fall Meeting
  10. “A UAV-RTK-Lidar system measurements of wave energy dissipation over a sandy beach and an algal-reef area”, EGU meeting, EGU2019-12158, 2019
  11. “A UAV-RTK-Lidar System for Wave and Tide Measurements in Coastal Zones”, The 9th Chinese-German Joint Symposium on Hydraulic and Ocean Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan, 2018