Sonia Lasher-Trapp

Sonia Lasher-Trapp is a Professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She previously held faculty positions at Purdue University from 2003 to 2014. Her research focuses on cloud and precipitation processes, numerical modeling, and the impacts of climate change on severe weather events. She leads a research group investigating entrainment effects in thunderstorms, hail dynamics, and microphysical parameterization.

Education:

• Ph.D. in Meteorology, The University of Oklahoma, 1998
• M.S. in Meteorology, The University of Oklahoma, 1993
• B.S. in Meteorology (summa cum laude), Saint Louis University, 1990

Research Interests: Climate change impacts on precipitation, thunderstorm dynamics, cloud microphysics, aerosol-cloud interactions, and numerical weather modeling. Recent work emphasizes the role of entrainment, ice nucleation, and CCN/INP variability in storm systems.

Recent Research Trends: Publications from 2020–2025 highlight investigations into hailfall changes under future climates, supercell entrainment mechanisms, and pseudo-global-warming climate attribution studies. Collaborations focus on Southern Ocean cloud processes and interdisciplinary field campaigns.

• Awards: American Meteorological Society Fellow (2023), Edward N. Lorenz Teaching Excellence Award (2021)

Teaching: Teaches graduate courses in precipitation physics, microphysical parameterization, aerosol-cloud-climate interactions, and undergraduate courses in atmospheric thermodynamics and cloud physics.

Labs/Teams: Leverages the Blue Waters supercomputer for high-resolution climate modeling projects. Collaborates with international teams on initiatives like CAPRICORN, MARCUS, and SOCRATES to study Southern Ocean cloud systems.