Lecturer I
Lecturer
- 7th year PhD student at University of California San Diego
Luke Amarelis-Sandibanks was a physics tutor and conducted medical physics research in undergrad, which was primarily experimental work on osteoporosis in cancellous bone. He was one of the founders of the engineering club at Rhodes College, a small liberal arts school lacking an engineering program. After undergrad, Luke taught at international schools in Shanghai, China. His first year teaching was for a variety of STEM classes, the second year teaching was physics and AP physics. He worked many quarters at UCSD as a teaching assistant, primarily for lab courses which approximately align to the lab courses he'll be teaching at USD during Fall 2026.
His PhD research journey consisted of about a year focused on dynamical systems and computational physics, and the last two to three years have been focused on dust storms with Professor Amato Evan at Scripps Institute of Oceanography. Specifically, Luke's PhD thesis is concerned with haboob dust storms which has been both interesting and challenging due to their multi-scale physics.
Areas of Expertise
Dynamical Systems, Meteorology, Haboob dust storms, Computational physics
Honors and Affiliations
Sigma Pi Sigma
Awards
- 3rd place poster in dust aerosol symposium at American Meteorological Society 2026
Areas of Interest
Computational Physics & Dynamical systems