12th Annual AMS Student Conference Austin, TX January 5-6, 2013

Invited Speakers

Wendy Abshire

Wendy Schreiber-Abshire is a Senior Project Manager for UCAR’s COMET Program in Boulder, CO where she leads internationally recognized training efforts currently in the areas of satellite meteorology, hydrology, climate, tropical meteorology, and space weather. Her primary duties include managing sponsor relationships and supervision of both scientists and instructional designers who conduct courses and create and publish materials to the MetEd website. She began her career at NCAR in 1983 where she participated in several landmark field programs and research studies, including JAWS and microburst research, convection initiation investigations, and she served as a radar meteorologist during GALE. Wendy joined the COMET Program in 1990 as a staff meteorologist and contributed to numerous training endeavors supporting the National Weather Service modernization. In 2003, after years spent developing training modules on a variety of topics, Wendy became the COMET Residence Course Coordinator which provided her the opportunity to interact with many atmospheric science professionals. Through the years Wendy has authored and co-authored over 50 scientific papers including journal articles and conference preprints. She earned a degree in Meteorology from Metropolitan State College of Denver (B.S. 1985) and a degree in Atmospheric Science from the University of Wyoming (M.S. 1989). Wendy is a long-time member, past Councilor, and 2012 Vice-President of the National Weather Association. She is also a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society and is a member of the American Geophysical Union and the Denver-Boulder Local AMS Chapter. Wendy served 4 years as chair of the AMS Board on Outreach and Pre-college Education where she led the creation of the AMS statement on the value of K-12 earth science education and 7 years on the AMS Local Chapter Affairs Committee. She is currently an active member of the AMS’ Membership Committee and Planning Commission. Wendy has also experienced career growth through participation in the 2001 AMS Summer Policy Program, the 2004 UCAR Leadership Academy program, and in 2009 she was appointed and continues to serve as an Ombudsperson for UCAR. In these capacities Wendy has learned a great deal about communication, coaching, and conflict resolution. Wendy’s current career objective is to: “increase both scientists’ and the public’s knowledge of atmospheric science to improve forecasts and weather-related decision-making and to benefit policy decisions affecting the earth-atmosphere system.” She continues to have a great deal of passion for mentoring others in the geosciences and owes her own mentors a great debt for the opportunities that have been afforded to her! When she’s not working, Wendy enjoys being married to the love of her life, spending time with her two “twenty-something” aged sons, and her friends. She loves sports, especially Colorado Rockies baseball, and most recently started collecting antique aprons and post cards. Lamont Bain

Lamont Bain attended the University of Oklahoma where he received his B.S. in Meteorology. During his stint at OU, Lamont was very much vested in weather forecasting and was heavily involved with the Oklahoma Weather Lab (OWL), a student forecasting organization at OU. In addition to his involvement with OWL, Lamont volunteered at the National Weather Service in Norman, OK and was an undergraduate research assistant at the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorology. Lamont now resides in Huntsville, Alabama, where he is attaining his Masters of Science in Atmospheric Science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. His research interests include synoptic meteorology as well as polarimetric radar observations of convective phenomenon. He currently works under Dr. Lawrence Carey and is examining kinematic, microphysical, and lightning properties of convection across the northern Alabama region from the field phase of the Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry Experiment. He also continues to volunteer at the National Weather Service Office in Huntsville, AL. Lamont’s passions/hobbies include weather forecasting, Sooner Football, and playing tennis. Once finished with his graduate schooling, Lamont hopes to attain a position within the National Weather Service.

Dr. Mary Barth

Dr. Mary Barth received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering (University of Colorado) in 1985 and Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences (University of Washington) in 1991. She is a Scientist III in the NCAR Earth System Laboratory’s Atmospheric Chemistry and Mesoscale and Microscale Meteorology Divisions and is head of the Atmospheric Chemistry Modeling Section. Throughout her career, Dr. Barth’s research focus has been on interactions between clouds and chemistry. Her scientific activities have included examining aerosol sulfate production to investigating the effects of clouds on ozone chemistry. Using the Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry, Dr. Barth has led the computationally-intensive project to examine the cloud-scale effects of the North American Monsoon on upper troposphere composition at the regional scale. Dr. Barth is one of the Principal Investigators for the Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry field campaign that occurred in May-June 2012. This field campaign collected comprehensive measurements of storm physics, dynamics, and lightning parameters with chemical composition of the inflow and outflow regions, as well as chemical composition of the convective outflow region 0-24 hours after active convection. Dr. Barth is a member of the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorology Society. She served on the International Commission on Clouds and Precipitation for 8 years and was the secretary for Atmospheric Chemistry of the American Geophysical Union for 2 years. She is currently a member of the International Global Atmospheric Chemistry Scientific Steering Committee and the Advisory Committee for NSF Geosciences Directorate.

Dr. Tom Bogdan

Dr. Thomas J. Bogdan is the 6th president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). A world authority on solar-terrestrial physics, Tom began his science career at the State University of New York at Buffalo, from which he graduated summa cum laude in 1979 with a degree in physics and mathematics. He earned a doctorate in physics from the University of Chicago in 1984, specializing in plasma astrophysics, and came to UCAR as a postdoctoral researcher to NCAR’s High Altitude Observatory (HAO), where he researched solar magnetic activity and basic magnetohydrodynamics. He has completed advanced training programs in leadership and business management from the Federal Executive Institute and the E.I DuPont de Nemurs Corporation. Bogdan spent time in Germany in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a Visiting Gauss Professor at Göttingen University Observatory and as a researcher at the Max Planck Institute. He returned to HAO in 1995 to lead the observatory’s Solar-Terrestrial Research Program; during this time, he also began developing and teaching graduate courses at the University of Colorado Boulder. From 2001–2003, Bogdan served as the National Science Foundation’s program director for solar-terrestrial physics in Washington, D.C. He was instrumental in developing NSF’s first bridged faculty program in the space sciences. Bogdan returned to NCAR in 2003 to assume senior management positions as the acting director of the Advanced Study Program and the acting associate NCAR director for societal and environmental programs. In 2006, he left NCAR to join the Senior Executive Service and lead the country’s civil operational space weather program, NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Program. As director, he represented the space weather enterprise across every affected sector of government and society, working with federal and commercial stakeholders at home and abroad. Under Tom’s leadership, the NWS’ National Centers for Environmental Prediction successfully transitioned the first numerical space weather prediction model into operations and increased its customer base six-fold between 2006 and 2012, when he left government service to rejoin UCAR. Bogdan, who has published more than 100 scientific papers, is a fellow of the AMS and the Royal Astronomical Society. He is an active member of numerous other scientific societies including the American Astronomical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, the International Astronomical Union, Sigma Xi, National Defense Industry Association, and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He works closely with the World Meteorological Organization as the U.S. point of contact for space weather issues and has chaired and served on numerous NSF, NASA, and National Research Council committees and panels that advise federal agencies and policymakers. He has extensive experience working with a wide variety of federal stakeholders and developing international and commercial partnerships not only in basic research but also operational prediction.

Barbara Mayes Boustead

Barbara Mayes Boustead is a forecast meteorologist and climate program manager at the National Weather Service office in Omaha/Valley, NE. A Michigan native, Barbara obtained her Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Arts degrees from Central Michigan University in 2000, with majors in meteorology, geography, and English, and minors in mathematics and history. Barbara earned a Master of Science degree in meteorology from The Pennsylvania State University in 2002, and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in Natural Resources with a specialization in Climate Assessment and Impacts. For three years (2002- 2005), Barbara worked as an outreach and customer service program manager for the National Weather Service's climate program at its headquarters in Silver Spring, MD, but her desire to work more directly with the weather drew her out into the National Weather Service forecast offices. Barbara moved out to the National Weather Service Forecast Office in the Quad Cities (Davenport, IA) as a forecaster in 2005 and then moved westward to the office in Omaha/Valley in 2008. Barbara's professional and research interests include topics such as climate (including climate variability, change, applications, and impacts), historical weather and climate events, severe and extreme weather, and improving communication of weather and climate concepts. Barbara is married to another meteorologist, Josh, and together they have one well-loved dog, JJ, a black lab and border collie mix. Outside of work, she enjoys traveling across the country to experience everything from beaches to mountains, as well as writing, reading, and great food with great friends and family. Barbara is actively researching the weather and climate events from the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, and her blog can be found at http://www.bousteadhill.net/wilder_weather/.

Dr. Eric Bruning

Dr. Eric Bruning received his B.S. and Ph.D. (2008) from the University of Oklahoma while a research assistant at the National Severe Storms Laboratory. From 2008-2010, he worked as a Research Associate at the University of Maryland’s Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satellites in the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center with the GOES-R Geostationary Lightning Mapper program. Since 2010, he has been an Assistant Professor of Atmospheric Science in the Department of Geosciences at Texas Tech University. Dr. Bruning’s research focuses on the coupling of meteorological and electrical conditions in thunderstorms through storm microphysical and dynamical processes. He has experience with balloon-borne electric field measurements inside thunderstorms, VHF lightning mapping data, and polarimetric radar observations. Recent work has supported GOES-R GLM validation efforts, reasearch-to-operations transition of total lightning data with the Lubbock, TX NWS Forecast Office, and participation in NSF’s Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry (DC3) campaign. Steve Carano

Steve is a tenured faculty professor and Geosciences Coordinator at Rose State College in Midwest City, Oklahoma. He is also a member of the First Alert Storm Team at KOCO-TV the ABC affiliate in Oklahoma City where he anchors and helps during severe weather outbreaks. Professor Carano has worked in TV since 1995 and has taught at Rose State College since 2001. Steve holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Meteorology, a Bachelor of Arts degree in Broadcast Journalism and a Master’s of Science Degree in Geosciences. He also hopes to receive a Ph.D. in Science Education in the future. Steve is a member of the American Meteorological Society and has been honored with several awards including, the Gold Key Professor and has been nominated several times for the Excellence in Teaching Award at the college where he works. Steve also has won an Emmy award for the coverage of the May 3 1999 Oklahoma City metro area tornado outbreak. While in college, Steve was a member of the Pride of Oklahoma University Marching Band. He now enjoys college football, hunting and fishing, friends and family, church activities, and of course, storm chasing!

Darren Clabo

Mr. Clabo is the State Fire Meteorologist for South Dakota and a faculty member within the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology (SDSM&T). As a faculty member at SDSM&T, he teaches courses in Synoptic and Fire Meteorology with a research focus on the interaction between wildland fires and the atmosphere. In his capacity as fire meteorologist, he works in collaboration with state officials in preventing and suppressing wildland fires and in the preparation and execution of prescribed fires. He is certified as a wildland firefighter and can work directly on the fireline to ensure that fire weather forecasts are going as planned and to provide on-site consultation for fire managers. Additionally, he is an Incident Meteorologist (IMET) for one of three interagency Rocky Mountain Area Type-II all–risk incident management teams. Mr. Clabo is very passionate about serving wildland fire managers and works hard to provide a bridge between the academic and operational communities. Contact/website information: [email protected] http://www.ias.sdsmt.edu/clabo/index.htm Follow on Twitter: twitter.com/SDFireWeather

Dr. Kristen Corbosiero

Dr. Kristen L. Corbosiero is an assistant professor of tropical and synoptic-dynamic meteorology at the University at Albany / State University of New York. Her current position marks a return to her graduate alma mater as she received her Master’s and Ph.D. degrees from the University at Albany in 2001 and 2005, respectively, studying the structure, intensity change, and distribution of lightning in tropical cyclones. Before returning to Albany, Dr. Corbosiero was an assistant professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles from 2007 to 2011, and an Advanced Study Program postdoctoral fellow at the National Center for Atmospheric Science from 2005 to 2007. Fascinated by the power of tropical cyclones after experiencing Hurricane Gloria in 1985, and motivated by her middle school geography teacher who ran a before school weather club, Dr. Corbosiero earned a Bachelor’s of Science with Distinction in soil, crop and atmospheric sciences from Cornell University. Her current research projects involve trying to understand hurricane structure and intensity change, including the processes responsible for secondary eyewall formation using the Weather Research and Forecast model, and examining data collected by the NASA Global Hawks to investigate how tropical cyclones respond to, and evolve in, vertical wind shear.

Dr. Scott Curtis

Dr. Curtis is an Associate Professor of Atmospheric Science in the Department of Geography at East Carolina University. He received his Ph.D. in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 1998. Prior to coming to ECU, Dr. Curtis was a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. He has authored over 50 publications and has received federal grants exceeding $750,000. Dr. Curtis’s research focuses on climate variability of regional to global extreme precipitation, and the application of atmospheric science to Geographic Information Science and questions of social vulnerability. He is a PI on an NSF- funded project: “Vulnerability and Resilience Among Small Farmers: An Assessment of Climate Change, Economic Stress, and the Role of Water Management Strategies.” The objective of the project is to develop a better understanding of the vulnerability and resilience of Caribbean small farmers in the face of two linked stressors – climate change and market variability – through a mixed-methods assessment of water availability and use in three Jamaican communities. He is also a co-I on an Asia Pacific Network grant that funded a scoping workshop in Dhaka, Bangladesh titled “Human Responses to Catastrophic Monsoon Events in South Asia: Developing a Spatially Explicit Model in Low-Lying Coastal Areas”. Finally, he is interested in the interplay between weather, climate and tourism in North Carolina. He has published on how coastal tourists, second homeowners, and local residents perceive optimum weather and climate conditions, and whether climate change considerations will impact recreation choices, sense of place, and future real estate decisions. Kathie Dello

Kathie is the Associate Director of the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute, Deputy Director of the Oregon Climate Service (OCS), and works with the Pacific Northwest Climate Impacts Research Consortium (CIRC) at Oregon State University. Her research interests include regional climate, the connection between climate and surface water, outreach, and regional climate adaptation. She led Oregon’s first climate assessment report, which is required by legislation, and was released in December of 2010. She is one of Oregon State University's most quoted experts in the media as reported by the daily media digest OSU Today. Prior to arriving at Oregon State in 2009, she spent five years working for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. She holds a BS in Atmospheric Science and an MA in Geography (Physical) from SUNY Albany. She spends her free time enjoying the beautiful Pacific Northwest.

Jessica Erlingis

Jessica Erlingis is a first year Ph.D. student in the School of Meteorology at the University of Oklahoma. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Oklahoma in 2010 with a B.S. in meteorology and minors in mathematics and Spanish. While an undergraduate, Jessica worked as a research assistant at the National Severe Storms Laboratory and was active in the Oklahoma Weather Lab. In the summer of 2012, Jessica completed her M.S. in environmental engineering at Duke University. Her thesis was titled An Investigation of the Role of Land-Atmosphere Interactions on Nocturnal Convective Activity in Southern Great Plains. Jessica has received both an American Meteorological Society graduate fellowship and a National Science Foundation graduate fellowship. Her research interests include hydrometeorology and flash flood prediction. Jessica can be reached at [email protected].

CAPT Ashley Evans

Captain Evans is a twenty-four year veteran of the United States Navy. He currently commands the Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Pearl Harbor, HI. The command provides typhoon data collection, analysis, forecasting and warning support to Department of Defense customers across the U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) area of responsibility; and tsunami warning and decision support to Department of Defense customers globally. Captain Evans previously commanded the Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Center and Strike Group Oceanography Team San Diego and a detachment at Naval Strike Warfare Center in Fallon Nevada from 2007-2009. The teams provided full spectrum environmental battlespace characterization for mission planning and execution of naval operations afloat and ashore across an area encompassing the Pacific, Indian and Southern Oceans as well as adjoining land areas. Captain Evans received a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University, Masters of Science in Meteorology and Oceanography from the Naval Post Graduate School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate study program certificate in Foreign Politics, International Relations and National Interests. He received his officer’s commission through Naval Officer’s Candidate School, Newport RI. Captain Evans served for eight years in the submarine force and the last fourteen years providing weather support for operations around the globe. He has made six deployments during two afloat tours and spent four years overseas. Captain Evans wears the Legion of Merit, two Meritorious Service Medals, three Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medals, five Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals, the NOAA Corp Commendation Medal, the Outstanding Volunteer Medal and various campaign, service and unit ribbons.

Dr. Rosana Ferreira

Dr. Ferreira earned Bachelors and Masters degrees in Meteorology from the University of São Paulo, Brazil. She graduated with a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO in 1994. After a year of post-doctoral work at Colorado State University, Dr. Ferreira spent several years as a climate scientist with the NASA Seasonal to Interannual Prediction Project in Greenbelt MD. The overarching theme of Dr. Ferreira’s research is to integrate observations and numerical model simulations of the atmosphere to study phenomena such as tropical cyclones, African easterly wave dynamics, South American and African monsoons, and the variability and predictability of regional climate on intraseasonal-to- interannual timescales. Dr. Ferreira is currently an assistant professor of Atmospheric Science at East Carolina University’s Department of Geography. At ECU Dr. Ferreira co-leads an NSF research project that aims at developing a climatology of precipitation system organization in the southeast United States using state-of-the-art satellite, radar and reanalysis datasets. Dr. Ferreira teaches courses on dynamic meteorology, tropical meteorology, weather and climate. Mark Fox

Mark Fox is the Warning Coordination Meteorologist at the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Fort Worth, Texas. Mark is a 1989 meteorology graduate of the University of Oklahoma. Mark started his professional career in the broadcast field, working for 10 years as the morning meteorologist for KFDX-TV in Wichita Falls, Texas. Mark began his National Weather Service career in West Palm Beach, Florida, but has worked in Fort Worth, Amarillo, and Lubbock, Texas. Mark moved back to Fort Worth in 2005 to serve as the Regional Training Officer at Southern Region Headquarters. He started as the WCM in Fort Worth in August of 2009.

Dr. Michael Friedman

Dr. Michael Friedman has been on the publications staff at AMS headquarters in Boston since 2001 as a Technical Editor and has been the Journals Production Manager since 2003. Prior to coming to AMS, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon. He has a Ph.D. in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences from the University of Wisconsin, an M.S. in Planetary Science from UCLA, and a B.A. in Physics from Rice University. He also worked as a systems engineer for Lockheed at NASA Johnson Space Center and in Sunnyvale, California, working on projects including the International Space Station and the EOS satellites. Originally from St. Louis, he is a lifelong soccer player, fan, and coach, and is a diehard Cardinals fan.

Ian Frost

Ian Frost started his life in the small, northwestern Pennsylvanian town of Oil City, where he experienced everything from severe weather to well over a foot of snow. After a microburst in 2003, he became fascinated with the power of Mother Nature and its effects on society. Ian took his love for weather to Penn State University, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Meteorology in 2011. During his time at PSU, he interned for the commercial and governmental sectors of the weather enterprise. In 2009, he learned the forecasting, graphic production, and business techniques used in broadcast meteorology at WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh, PA. The summer of 2010 took Frost to Naval Research Laboratories in Monterey, CA, where he performed forecast research and rode 20+ foot waves on the Pacific Ocean for several days during an air-sea interaction field experiment. Ian currently works as an operational meteorologist for MDA Information Systems LLC in Gaithersburg, MD, where he helps forecast the weather for energy and agriculture clients. Brody Fuchs

To combine his loves of math, science and the outdoors, Brody found his calling studying physics and meteorology at Saint Cloud State University. Brody graduated Magna Cum Laude from his undergraduate institution in 2010 with a Bachelor’s in Physics and a minor in Meteorology. It was there that he started research with his optics professor on multiple projects. This interest in research led him to participate in 2 undergraduate research internships at the University of Wisconsin – Madison and the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor where his love of research was cemented. To pursue a career in research, Brody decided to attend graduate school in Atmospheric Science. Currently Brody is working towards his Masters in Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University where he is studying the environmental conditions and electrical characteristics of isolated convection. During his time at CSU he also assisted with the Deep Convective Clouds and Chemistry (DC3) field experiment. Controlling the CHILL dual-polarimetric radar and assisting in the construction of the northeast Colorado Lightning Mapping Array were among his duties during the project. Brody also explored his teaching interests this fall during a teaching assistantship for an introductory cloud physics class. This was a very satisfying experience that ignited a passion for sharing ideas and knowledge that he intends to continue to pursue in the future.

Don Giuliano

Don Giuliano completed a Bachelor’s degree in Meteorology from the University of Oklahoma in 2001 and a Master’s in Professional Meteorology (also from OU) in 2004. After leaving school, he worked at the Oklahoma Climatological Survey (OCS) for several years, followed by the Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms (CAPS). In his free time, Don co-authored peer-reviewed research such as Discriminating between Tornadic and Non-Tornadic Supercells: A New Hodograph Technique (published in EJSSM in 2008). Having long held entrepreneurial ambitions, he co-founded Weather Fusion in 2007, left CAPS, and began creating unique, added-value forensic weather solutions for private industry. With Don as CEO, Weather Fusion has rapidly grown to become the largest U.S.-based weather company focused exclusively on delivering forensic weather data. Headquartered in Norman, OK, Weather Fusion currently serves a variety of clients, ranging from insurance carriers and roofing contractors to individual policyholders and homeowners.

Amy Godsey

Amy Godsey serves the State of Florida as the Chief State Meteorologist with the Florida Division of Emergency Management, frequently briefing the Florida Governor and other senior state leaders on impending weather hazards throughout the State of Florida. Amy has worked at Florida’s Emergency Management Office since 2006 after graduating with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Meteorology from The Florida State University, and has accrued more than 6 years of experience in the meteorological and emergency management communities, including more than 250 hours of emergency management training, 40 hours of continuing meteorological training, and over 3,000 hours of disaster experience. Some of her most notable disaster events include the 2007 wildfire season, Fay, Gustav, Hannah and Ike in 2008, the 2009 North Florida floods, Operation Haiti Relief, Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, and Beryl, Debby, Isaac and Sandy in 2012. Meteorology is a family affair, as her husband, Kelly Godsey, serves as a forecaster and Assistant Warning Coordination Meteorologist at the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Tallahassee, Florida. Kelly and Amy met at Florida State while appearing in a nightly 30-minute weather show produced by the meteorology department. Through her work, Amy has been distinguished and certified as a Florida Professional Emergency Manager. She also serves on several advisory boards, including the National Emergency Management Association, National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program, Florida Silver Jackets, and the AMS Board for Operational Government Meteorologists.

Kenneth Graham

Ken Graham is the Meteorologist-in-Charge at the National Weather Service New Orleans/Baton Rouge. He received a Bachelor’s of Science Degree at the University of Arizona, with a minor in Physics and Mathematics. He then headed to Mississippi State University to teach physics and work on a Master of Science Degree in Geosciences. While in Mississippi, he was a partner and customer of the National Weather Service while a television meteorologist for CBS and agricultural meteorologist across the state for the Mississippi Network Radio. Ken began his National Weather Service Career as an Intern Forecaster in New Orleans. His career took him to Southern Region Headquarters as the Marine and Public Program Manager during National Weather Service Modernization and spin-up of Weather Service Offices to full Weather Forecast Offices. He became the Meteorologist-in-Charge at Corpus Christi, Texas and Birmingham, Alabama. While in Birmingham from 2001 to 2005, his office won Department of Commerce medals each year for innovative services like Instant Messaging with television stations during critical events such as the Veteran’s Day Tornado Outbreak. This innovation is now standard across the entire National Weather Service. Ken was part of the team that created the BLAST program, Building Leaders for a Solid Tomorrow, which is still training leaders after 12 years. He served as Systems Operations Chief at Southern Region Headquarters where he won a Bronze Medal for leading a team to make critical repairs to the Slidell office and staff support following Hurricane Katrina. He was the Chief of Meteorological Services at National Weather Service Headquarters where he worked closely with partners to improve services and briefed Congressional Committees on the vital service the National Weather Service provides to the nation. As the Meteorologist-in-Charge in New Orleans, he received a Bachelor’s of Science Degree at the University of Arizona, with a minor in Physics and Mathematics. He then headed to Mississippi State University to teach physics and work on a Master of Science Degree in Geosciences. While in Mississippi, he was a partner and customer of the National Weather Service while a television meteorologist for CBS and agricultural meteorologist across the state for the Mississippi Network Radio. Ken began his National Weather Service Career as an Intern Forecaster in New Orleans, his office won the Department of Commerce Bronze medal for innovative services during Hurricane Gustav and Ike. He recently led the service assessment for the Pacific Basin Tsunami in Samoa. Ken is a member of the National Weather Association, American Meteorological Society and International Association for Emergency Managers. He is also a HAM Radio Operator.

Dr. Eve Gruntfest

Dr. Eve Gruntfest is a geographer who has been working in the field of natural hazard mitigation for more than 35 years. Her career began with her Master’s thesis research focused on what people did during the catastrophic 1976 Big Thompson Flood in Colorado. She received her MA and Ph.D. at the University of Colorado in Boulder. Gruntfest is Professor Emeritus of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs after working as a professor there from 1980 until 2007. Eve has published widely and is an internationally recognized expert in the areas of warning systems, flash flooding and integrating social science into meteorology. She is writing a textbook Weather and Society: Integrated Approaches for Wiley Blackwell. From 2010 to 2012 Gruntfest was a member of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Science Advisory Board. In 2010 she was a visiting scientist in Grenoble, France at the Laboratoire d’étude des Transferts en Hydrologie et Environnement. She has served on five National Research Council committees. In 2009 she was awarded the Kenneth E. Spengler Award from the American Meteorological Society. Between 2008-2011 Dr. Gruntfest directed an initiative called SSWIM (Social Science Woven into Meteorology) at The National Weather Center in Norman, OK. From 2005-2006 Dr. Gruntfest was a research scientist at NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) in Boulder, CO where she co-founded the WAS * IS movement (Weather and Society Integrated Studies). Jill Hardy

Jill Hardy is a second-year graduate student in the School of Meteorology at the University of Oklahoma. Under the direction of Dr. JJ Gourley, she is a Research Assistant in the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL), where her thesis topic is probabilistic flash flood forecasting using stormscale NWP ensembles. She earned a B.S. in geological sciences and a minor in mathematics from the University of Southern California in 2011. Her undergraduate research projects included earthquake detection and proxy-based climate reconstructions. However, she pursued her interest in meteorology by accepting the NOAA Ernest F. Hollings Scholarship in 2009, and completed the associated internship at NSSL in Norman, OK. Through this internship, she evaluated probabilistic precipitation forecasts generated by NWP models, and earned an Outstanding Student Poster Presentation at the 2011 AMS Annual Meeting in Seattle, WA. During her time at OU, Jill has taught introductory meteorology labs, participated in weather safety outreach at local elementary schools, and volunteered at the National Weather Festival. In April 2012, she earned a three-year National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to fund her current thesis topic. Jill is originally from Frederick, MD and enjoys spending her free time playing softball and hanging with friends. Due to her quite interdisciplinary background, feel free to contact her with any questions at [email protected].

Ben Herzog

Ben is a second year graduate student in the School of Meteorology at the University of Oklahoma. At OU, he is working with Dr. Kristin Calhoun and Dr. Don MacGorman on research relating total lightning data from Lightning Mapping Arrays to storm type. He also served several roles in support of the DC3 field campaign in the summer of 2012. Before coming to OU, Ben graduated magna cum laude from the University of Missouri with a B.S. in Soil, Environmental, and Atmospheric Science and a minor in Mathematics in 2011. While at Mizzou, Ben held several positions in the University of Missouri's Student Chapter of the AMS, including President and Vice President. After graduate school Ben hopes to obtain a position in the National Weather Service and has spent considerable in weather forecast offices in pursuit of that goal. In the summer of 2009, Ben volunteered at the St. Louis, MO NWS office. He also spent ten weeks at the Melbourne, FL NWS office working on research concerning lightning forecasting and experimental lightning warnings as part of the Ernest F. Hollings Scholarship program. Ben is originally from St. Louis, MO, and outside of weather has a passion for the St. Louis Cardinals, Green Bay Packers, photography and music. This will be Ben's fourth Student Conference, and the second time serving on the Planning Committee.

James Hocker

James Hocker is the program manager for the OK-First weather education program for emergency managers. In existence since 1996, OK-First has trained public safety officials throughout Oklahoma and bordering areas at nearly 200 separate one-day and multi-day classes during the past 15 years. James began his involvement with OK-First in 2009 as an assistant instructor before being promoted to the position of program manager in 2011. As OK-First program manager James is responsible for carrying out two training seasons during the year, developing new training curriculum and content, contributing to the development of new software and the OK-First decision support website, interacting with emergency managers, and collaborating with meteorologists at the National Weather Center on new technologies and advancements. Prior to his position with OK-First James was a program manager for the University of Oklahoma and Louisiana State University-led Southern Climate Impacts Planning Program, which is part of the NOAA Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments (RISA) program. James graduated with honors from the University of Oklahoma (OU) in 2004 with a bachelor’s degree in meteorology, followed by a master’s degree in meteorology from OU in 2006. His graduate research focused on the development of a 10-year climatology of supercell and squall line thunderstorms across the state of Oklahoma using weather radar and GIS. Much of James’ interests are focused in the area of hazardous weather events with an emphasis on weather and radar education for public safety officials.

Mike Hudson

Mike Hudson currently serves as the Chief Operating Officer for the National Weather Service Central Region Headquarters in Kansas City, Missouri. In this capacity, Mike helps to steer the direction of future operations of Central Region Headquarters and its 45 field offices spread across 14 states. Mikes serves as the region’s strategic planner and works towards services evolution by helping to infuse new technologies and concepts into operations. During his 18 year career, Mike has been involved in numerous strategic planning and service evolution concepts, highlights of which include both the development of an agency Internet corporate image, the deployment of a modernized NOAA Weather Radio system, and participation on strategic planning teams. Mike recently completed a 10-month detail at NWS Headquarters developing the Services Plan of the NWS’ Weather-Ready Nation Roadmap. Mike graduated in 1993 from the University of Kansas with a Bachelor’s Degree in atmospheric science. He is a fellow of the 2008 American Meteorological Society’s Summer Policy Colloquium, and he has also participated in several activities related to the Weather and Society/Integrated Studies program.

Joshua Jans

Mr. Joshua J. Jans is the Chief Operating Officer and Lead Meteorologist at AnythingWeather Communications, Inc., with offices located in California and Texas. Jans earned his B.S. in Geography and Atmospheric Sciences in 2004 and completed his Cross Disciplinary M.S. from Minnesota State University, Mankato in 2008 integrating meteorology, technology, and societal impacts within an educational framework. Jans' expertise lies within the fusion of social science into meteorological research and practice. His pivotal role includes overseeing the research, development, production and quality control of historical meteorological reports, forecast services, and weather hardware solutions to a diverse consumer base. During his time off, he continues to be very active in the weather community through the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and National Weather Association (NWA) through his ongoing research in developing a national weather training curriculum covering weather processes, interpretation, and decision-making geared toward different stakeholders during weather disasters large and small. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for Spotter Network™, and is a National Liaison to the NWS SKYWARN® Weather Spotter Program.

Dr. Gregory Jenkins

Gregory Jenkins is a native of Philadelphia and grew up in West Philly. He is currently a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Howard University in Washington DC. He received his BS in Physics from Lincoln University and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Atmospheric and Space Sciences from the University of Michigan. After receiving his Ph.D. he spent 2 years at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder Colorado. In 1993, he began at Penn State University and then at Howard University as a research associate and faculty member. In 1996, Dr. Jenkins joined the faculty at Penn State University in the department of Meteorology and joined Howard University in the department of Physics and Astronomy and the Howard University Program in Atmospheric Sciences (HUPAS) in 2003. He was the director of HUPAS from 2004-2007 and chair of the department of physics and astronomy from 2007 through 2010. He was a recipient of the NSF Career award and was selected as a Fulbright Senior Research Fellow in 2003/2004 where he undertook climate change research in Dakar, Senegal. In 2006, Dr. Jenkins was part of the leadership team in the NASA African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis field campaign in Cape Verde and Senegal. He participated in the 2010 Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) hurricane field campaign in addition to undertaking ground measurements Cape Verde, Senegal and Barbados. He has published in numerous journals and was nominated as the 2007 distinguished Alumni member in the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan. His areas of research include West African climate change/rainfall variability and sources/sinks of tropospheric ozone from Africa. He served on NASA’s Earth Science Subcommittee (ESS) from 2006-2012 and is a member of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

Troy Kimmel

Troy Kimmel, a native Texan, has been involved in broadcast meteorology even before his graduation from Texas A & M University (B.S., Geography) in 1984. Starting in television back in 1978 at KBTX-TV in Bryan/College Station, as Weather Director, he was responsible for the weeknight weathercasts. In 1984, he moved to KVUE 24 Television (ABC) in Austin where he worked for almost ten years. From 1993 to 1994, he worked as Chief Meteorologist with the Lower Colorado River Authority and then from 1994 to 1997 as Chief Meteorologist with KTBC/Fox 7 Television. From 1997 to 2010, he worked with KVET/KASE/KFMK (Clear Channel) Radio Stations as Chief Meteorologist. Most recently, he worked at KEYE Television 2000 until 2003 and rejoined them in July 2009 until December 2012 as Chief Meteorologist. In July 2012, he joined KOKE FM in Austin as Chief Meteorologist. Kimmel has been involved in teaching as an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Geography and the Environment at the University of Texas at Austin as a Lecturer / Studies in Weather and Climate since 1988. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer effective in the fall of 2007. He teaches an introductory undergraduate class entitled Weather and Climate as well as an upper level division undergraduate class entitled Severe and Unusual Weather. He also serves as Manager of the Weather and Climate Resource Center in the Department of Geography and the Environment. In addition, he has served as a member on the University of Texas Safety and Security Committee since 2005, where he acts as Incident Meteorologist for University of Texas Emergency Operation Center (EOC) activations. As owner of KimCo Meteorological Services, he provides meteorological data and services to companies. Since 1990, he has also worked as Team Meteorologist with the football program at Texas A & M University providing game day and practice forecasts.

Dr. Kevin Kloesel

Kevin Kloesel is Associate Dean for Public Service and Outreach in the College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences at the University of Oklahoma. He is directly responsible for outreach programs and tours for the over 30,000 people that visit the National Weather Center facility in Norman annually. In addition, he is an Associate Professor in the OU School of Meteorology with teaching and research interests ranging from synoptic meteorology to societal impacts and decision making in weather-impacted situations. He led the team that won the Innovations in American Government Award from Harvard University and the Ford Foundation for their work with the emergency management community in Oklahoma. Currently, he works directly with thousands of K-12 students and teachers, as well as hundreds of emergency management agencies in finding appropriate applications for weather data in local education and decision making. He was also a content designer for Scholastic’s The Magic School Bus Kicks Up a Storm children’s museum exhibit that is currently touring the US. He works closely with the Norman Chamber of Commerce and Norman Economic Development Coalition to provide continuing education opportunities to the growing private weather enterprise in Norman. Previously, he was Director of Outreach for the largest state climate office in the country, the Oklahoma Climatological Survey, and served as director of the Florida Climate Center in Tallahassee, FL. While a tenured faculty member at Florida State University, he served as a research fellow with the Cooperative Institute for Tropical Meteorology, and co-directed an outreach project, EXPLORES!, which provided NOAA satellite data ingest capabilities to over 200 schools throughout Florida.

Dr. Richard Knabb

Dr. Richard Knabb is the Director of NOAA’s National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida. Dr. Knabb received his Bachelor’s Degree in Atmospheric Science from Purdue University (1990) and his Masters of Science and Doctorate in Meteorology from the Florida State University (1993, 1999). He completed his postdoctoral work at the University of Hawaii (2000). Dr. Knabb was a Research Meteorologist and Lead Forecaster at the Mauna Kea Weather Center from 1999 to 2001. He joined Risk Management Solutions, Inc., in Newark, California, in 2001 as an Assistant Product Manager for Weather Risk. Later that year, he joined NOAA’s National Hurricane Center as the Science and Operations Officer, and was a senior hurricane specialist there in 2005-2008. In 2008, Dr. Knabb became the Deputy Director of NOAA’s Central Pacific Hurricane Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. He served in that capacity until 2010, when he joined The Weather Channel in Atlanta, Georgia, as its on-air Hurricane Expert and Tropical Science Program Manager. Dr. Knabb is a member of the American Meteorological Society.

Dr. Daphne LaDue

Daphne S. LaDue is a Research Scientist at the University of Oklahoma’s Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms. She earned her B.A. in physics from Anderson University in 1990 and then went immediately on to earn her M.S. in Atmospheric Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1992. She held three applied research positions before shifting to educational outreach. That prompted her to return to school to earn her Ph.D. in Adult & Higher Education from the University of Oklahoma. She has three main projects, one of which she has held for some time: the Principal Investigator and Director of the Real-World Research Experiences for Undergraduates at the National Weather Center. Her return to school inspired her to enhance the NWC REU program in ways designed to help students build critical thinking and metacognitive research skills. She is now the lead social scientist on a series of studies that integrate users into the development of the MultiFunction Phased Array Radar, and in the fall of 2012 she began teaching a general education course on severe weather at the University of Oklahoma, thus adding Lecturer of Meteorology to her titles.

Dr. Steve Lyons, Keynote Speaker

Steve was born in San Diego and grew up in Southern California. He got his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from the University of Hawaii and surfed his way through school on a track and field scholarship. Steve has a diverse career background, some of his jobs including: professor, Navy research scientist, GFDL climate scientist, private sector research/forecasting/TV/The Weather Channel Hurricane Expert, and worked numerous jobs within the National Weather Service including at the National Hurricane Center and NWS Southern Region Headquarters. Steve has served as acting deputy director of the Southern Region and is currently the Meteorologist-in-Charge at NWS San Angelo, TX. Steve has given more than 200 invited talks and seminars around the U.S. and internationally and has written more than 50 scientific papers. Some of his awards include: the Neil Frank Award, Dick Fletcher Media Award, Weather Hero Award, multiple awards from emergency management and meteorological training sites and has received numerous Navy applied research awards. Steve is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, in the Hawaii Academy of Science, a JIMAR Senior Fellow.

Matt Meister

My job as Chief Meteorologist centers around one thing: tracking storms to keep viewers and listeners safe and aware of dangerous weather in Southern Colorado. From our famous high plains blizzards, to light snow that creates icy roads... downslope wind storms in the winter, to gusty thunderstorms in the summer... cloud-to-ground lightning, to dangerous wind chills... in addition to tornadoes and hail, it’s definitely a full time job! As a broadcast meteorologist, I bring some unique experience with me when it comes to analyzing storms. Before getting into television, I was employed at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, where my work focused on thunderstorm initiation, growth and dissipation for use in an automated forecasting and tracking system called the NCAR Thunderstorm AutoNowcaster. This system was deployed to Sydney, Australia and was used to forecast thunderstorms during the Summer Olympic Games in 2000. My work centered on surface-based wind shift lines and outflow boundaries. I had to track these features and how they related to thunderstorm development and/or intensification. This helps me now during the summer months because many times in our atmosphere, a thunderstorm will collapse and produce an outflow boundary (rain cooled air that acts like a mini cold front) that generates new storms. Our usually dry lower atmosphere makes these outflow boundaries very common from about mid-June through early September. We have storms almost every day and you’ll usually hear me talk about these outflows as we track storms across the region. All of my education and professional experience resides along the Front Range. In addition to NCAR in Boulder, before coming to Colorado Springs I graduated Magna Cum Laude from the Metropolitan State College of Denver, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Meteorology with a minor in Mathematics. I was then hired as the weekend meteorologist at KGWN-TV, the CBS affiiate in Cheyenne, Wyoming before arriving at NEWSCHANNEL 13 in September of 2001 as the weekend meteorologist. In addition to the weekend newscasts and live shots covering the weather, filling in when others were on vacation and doing a lot of behind the scenes computer work were my primary job functions. In April of 2005, I was promoted to the weekday evening meteorologist and later in the year became the Chief Meteorologist. In October of the same year, I was the first meteorologist in southern Colorado to be recognized as a Certified Broadcast Meteorologist by the American Meteorological Society. In addition to my on-air duties of both our television and radio operations, I wear many other hats in my job as the head of the weather department. Between being the contact with other departments in our operation, overseeing the maintenance of all our weather computers (we have 16!) and supervising our wonderful staff of STORMTRACKERS (somebody has to make the schedule!), it sometimes seems like I have two jobs to do. I’m very lucky though in that I totally love what I do. I’ve been outside during many a snowstorm, have been stuck at the fire station in Falcon during a blizzard but my two most memorable moments in southern Colorado weather involve tornadoes. On August 9th of 2004, I videotaped 3 tornadoes (and almost a 4th!) in southern Elbert and northern El Paso counties. Storm chasing will always be something I wish I was able to do more as every time I go I’m amazed at how much I learn! The other twister, and something I’ll remember until I die, was tracking the Holly tornado. I was the only one on live on the air for the first 20 minutes of the tornado’s life and remember feeling a pit in my stomach when we first learned there were serious injuries and possible fatalities. Close family friends on my wife’s side live in Holly and their house was destroyed by the tornado...I’ll always wonder if there is more I could’ve done that may have saved the two lives that were lost during that tragic storm. I take my job very seriously and am always looking for ways to improve our weathercasts and how we present and deliver weather information. If you ever have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to email me [email protected].

Stephanie Melton

Stephanie is a graduate of Iowa State University. She earned her Bachelor of Science in December 2011. Last April, she moved from the Midwest to Houston, TX to become a marine meteorologist for ImpactWeather and loves the new experiences. You can find her on LinkedIn or email her at [email protected].

Michael Mogil

Mike Mogil is a professional meteorologist based in Naples, Florida. Mike has nearly 40 years of experience in meteorology, in a career that spans many different facets of the field. He has worked with the National Weather Service in various field office and Headquarters positions and served at NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center, National Centers for Environmental Prediction and Satellite Applications Laboratory. He earned both his Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Meteorology from Florida State University, and he is among a select few having earned both CBM (Certified Broadcast Meteorologist) and CCM (Certified Consulting Meteorologist) certifications. Mike is also the Director of the nationwide weather camp program (now with more than a dozen camp sites in operation). He has also written several books, most recently an updated version of his 2007 work, “Extreme Weather,” a book that has received many positive reviews. Mikes honors and awards include: National Weather Association Member of the Year, 1988; NOAA Satellite Applications Laboratory Trainer of the Year, 1993; three NOAA Unit Citations (for “significant contributions...providing excellent training...and “long-term support of programs.”) Mike owns and operates his weather consulting company, How The Weatherworks, which focuses on providing a wide array of services including forensic support, school learning programs, writing and editing, photography and forecasting. He and his wife also own and operate Mathworks, a tutoring company in Naples, FL, serving almost 100 students a year.

Dr. Burrell Montz

Dr. Burrell E. Montz (Ph.D., University of Colorado, Boulder) is Professor and Chair of the Geography Department at East Carolina University. She spent many years at Binghamton University in New York before moving to ECU in 2009. Throughout her career, she has been involved in teaching and research on natural hazards and water resources management. She started her career looking at responses to flooding in the Northeastern United States and has addressed such topics as the effects of flooding on property values, perceptions of risk, and responses to warnings. She has been fortunate to have been able to work in such places as Slovenia and New Zealand, as well as numerous locations throughout the US. Dr. Montz was part of the NWS Assessment Team for the 2008 Mother’s Day tornadoes in Missouri and Oklahoma. She is currently part of a team working with the National Weather Service on emergency management decision support, with her contributions centering on the social science aspects of the project and another team addressing the public’s use of NWS hydrological information relating to flooding. Dr. Montz has also been part of the Carolinas Integrated Sciences & Assessments project, aimed at integrating climate science and resource management in the Carolinas. Her contribution focuses on the Lower Cape Fear Basin in North Carolina and, working with stakeholders, assessed water availability and use over time, under different scenarios, at several temporal and spatial scales.

Dr. Jon Nese

Dr. Jon Nese is Associate Head for Undergraduate Programs and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Meteorology at Penn State University where he teaches a variety of undergraduate courses, including Introduction to Weather Analysis, Synoptic Meteorology Laboratory, and Weather and Risk. He also writes and produces weekly informational features for Penn State’s weather magazine show Weather World. Dr. Nese received his Ph.D. from Penn State in 1989, and prior to joining the Penn State faculty in 2005, he worked as Chief Meteorologist at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia (1998-2002) and as on-air Storm Analyst at The Weather Channel (2002-05). Dr. Nese has authored or co-authored ten journal articles and two books: The Philadelphia Area Weather Book, which received the 2005 Louis J. Battan Author’s Award from the American Meteorological Society; and a college-level introductory textbook A World of Weather: Fundamentals of Meteorology, now in its fifth edition.

Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon

John Nielsen-Gammon is the Texas State Climatologist and is Regents Professor in the Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University. He grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, at a place his family called “Hurricane Hill.” At age 13, after taking twice-daily weather observations for a year, he decided that if meteorology wasn’t boring yet, it would probably never get boring. His judgment has proven correct, at least so far. He spent ten years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, just long enough to earn S.B, S.M., and Ph.D. degrees. After a year as a post-doc at SUNY-Albany, he became a professor at Texas A&M University in 1991. He teaches mostly undergraduate courses in weather forecasting and climatology. His research interests include jet streams, heavy rain, sea breezes and their interaction with air pollution, drought monitoring and prediction, and climate data analysis. He was appointed Texas State Climatologist by then- Governor George W. Bush in 2000. He is Past President of the International Commission for Dynamical Meteorology and is past chair of the AMS Board on Higher Education. Dr. Nielsen- Gammon received a Presidential Faculty Fellow award (now known as PECASE) from the National Science Foundation and the White House in 1996, a Distinguished Achievement Award in Teaching at Texas A&M University from the Association of Former Students in 1996, and was named a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) in 2011. He also received a Newsmaker Image Award from Texas A&M University in 2011. Most recently, the Weather Museum in Houston named him a 2011 Weather Hero, but he refuses to rest until he has attained Weather Superhero status.

Dr. Rajul Pandya

Rajul (Raj) Pandya is the director of Spark: Science Education, which is an education and community engagement group associated with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Spark’s mission is to engage people and communities in the wonder and discovery of science, especially as related to the atmosphere. Spark researches, develops, and shares educational experiences. Other activities include research internships for secondary and college students and teachers, exhibits and tours, and a library of web-based activities and interactives. Spark also partners with diverse communities on projects that advance community priorities using atmospheric science. Examples include working with tribal colleges to explore climate change impacts on native lands and work in Africa to use precipitation forecasts to better manage meningitis. Pandya got his Ph.D. investigating the large scale circulation around thunderstorms at the University of Washington. His undergraduate degree is in physics from the University of Illinois. Prior to joining UCAR he worked at West Chester University of Pennsylvania where he investigated visualization as a learning tool and taught meteorology and astronomy. He lives in Boulder with his wife, a physician at the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, and his horse- and reading- crazy daughter. Dr. Robert Rauber

Professor Rauber is Head of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urban-Champaign. He maintains active research programs in the fields of mesoscale meteorology and precipitation physics. He has been an investigator in 22 Field campaigns including (most recently) the Rain in Cumulus over the Ocean (RICO, 2004-5), the Profiling of Winter Storms pilot project (PLOWS, 2009-11), the Bow Echo and MCV Experiment (BAMEX, 2003) and the Snow Band Dynamics project (1997-98). He has worked extensively with conventional, dual-Doppler, polarization, and airborne radars, radiometers, optical array and scattering probes, as well as other aircraft, ground-based and satellite-based instruments. Dr. Rauber’s research involves both observational analyses and cloud and mesoscale modeling. His past research has appeared in Nature, Monthly Weather Review, the Journal of Atmospheric Sciences, the Journal of Applied Meteorology, the Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, the Journal of Geophysical Research, Geophysical Research Letters, the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Weather and Forecasting, the Encyclopedia of the Atmospheric Sciences, Encyclopedia of Imaging Technology, Encyclopedia of World Geography, and the Handbook of Meteorology.. He is the lead author of the textbook Severe and Hazardous Weather, an Introduction to High Impact Meteorology, now used at over 100 universities. Dr. Rauber is currently the Publications Commissioner of the American Meteorological Society after a 7 year term as Chief Editor of the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology and a 5 year term as editor of the same journal. He was also an associate editor of Weather and Forecasting. He is currently Vice President of the International Commission on Clouds and Precipitation, a member of the UCAR President’s Advisory Council of University Relations, and has served as chairman and as a member of the NSF OFAP facility advisory panel. He has also been chairman of the AMS Committee on Cloud Physics, and was the Program Chairman of past AMS Conferences on Radar Meteorology and Cloud Physics. Dr. Rauber has received several teaching awards, including, in 2007, the University of Illinois’s highest award for graduate teaching, the Campus Award for Excellence in Graduate and Professional Teaching.

Dr. Francis Slakey, Keynote Speaker

Francis Slakey is the Associate Director of Public Affairs for the American Physical Society where he oversees all APS legislative activities, specializing in energy and security policy. He is also The Upjohn Lecturer on Physics and Public Policy and the Co-Director of the Program on Science in the Public Interest at Georgetown University. Dr. Slakey received his Ph.D. in Physics in 1992 from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His technical publications have received more than 500 citations. He has also written widely on science policy issues, publishing more than fifty articles for the popular press including The New York Times, Washington Post, and Scientific American. He has served in advisory positions for a diverse set of organizations including the National Geographic, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Creative Coalition - the political advocacy organization of the entertainment industry. He is a Fellow of the APS, a Fellow of the AAAS, a MacArthur Scholar, and a Lemelson Research Associate of the Smithsonian Institution. Dr. Slakey became the 28th American to summit Mt. Everest in an unguided expedition that was the subject of the movie, “Beyond the Summit.” He is the first person in history to both summit the highest mountain on every continent and surf every ocean. In recognition of his adventures, as part of the 2002 Olympic Games, he carried the Olympic torch from the steps of the U.S. Capitol. He describes his global journey in his best- selling adventure memoir, “To The Last Breath.”

Chris Strager

Christopher S. Strager is the NWS Advisor for Science and Service Integration. Mr. Strager started his meteorological career as an enlisted weather observer with the Air Force in 1978. While Chris left Air Force active duty in May 1992, he maintained his ties with the Air Force by serving as the Commander of the Pennsylvania Air National Guard’s 146th Weather Flight through June 2012. His military awards include the Bronze Star for his leadership of a Special Operations Weather Team during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Mr. Strager started his career with the NWS at the Portland, ME, Weather Forecast Office. Over the years, he held various positions in the organization, including Meteorologist in Charge of the Pittsburgh, PA Weather Forecast Office, the NWS Alaska Region Deputy Regional Director, and the NWS Eastern Region Director. In March 2011, Mr. Strager was asked to serve on a temporary detail at NWS Headquarters to develop the NWS Roadmap, which will implement the NWS Strategic Plan. This document will shape and guide NWS operations in the year 2020 and beyond. He was asked to lead this effort full-time as the Advisor for Science and Service Integration, and remains in this position today.

Natalie Stoll

Meteorologist Natalie Stoll joined the KXAN First Warning Weather team in 2008. Since then, she’s split her time between forecasting the weather and reporting on environmental and weather-related happenings in Central Texas. Natalie grew up in St. Louis, Missouri and graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree in Soil and Atmospheric Sciences. Prior to moving to Austin, Natalie worked as a meteorologist for the ABC affiliate in Sioux City, Iowa. Natalie is a member of the American Meteorological Society. She earned her Certified Broadcast Meteorologist (CBM) designation in 2011.

Sarah Tessendorf

Sarah Tessendorf is a Project Scientist in the Research Applications Laboratory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Sarah’s general area of research is in cloud physics, focusing on aerosol impacts on clouds and precipitation. She also works with computer modelers to improve and validate cloud microphysics model parameterizations using observations from radars, raindrop disdrometers, and other surface measurements. She has studied hail formation in severe storms, lightning, and cloud seeding effects on precipitation formation. Sarah also works as a part-time staff scientist with The GLOBE Program on their Science and Education Team. Sarah became fascinated by weather, especially severe storms and tornadoes, as a young child growing up in the central United States’ “Tornado Alley”. She went on to earn her bachelor’s degree in Meteorology/Climatology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and then her master’s and doctorate degrees from Colorado State University in Atmospheric Science. Some of Sarah’s unique experiences include her involvement with a student program called SOARS (Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science), initially as a student (referred to as a protégé in the program), then as a Steering Committee member, and currently as a mentor. Through her involvement with the SOARS program, Sarah became interested in working with students and education and outreach. She has completed formal education in multicultural curriculum development, as well as has a variety of experiences leading workshops for students and science teachers. She has also been an instructor at the University of Colorado- Boulder, where she taught their introductory course on weather and the atmosphere. Sarah’s mission when it comes to working in education and outreach is to help create a more scientifically literate population. She is interested in how to effectively teach and engage students in science, especially those with a variety of different learning styles that may not always excel in science if taught with traditional methods. With The GLOBE Program, she is helping develop a scientist network to work with GLOBE schools, coordinating projects that encourage GLOBE data collection, mentoring student research projects, training teachers, and writing for the GLOBE Scientists’ Blog.

Zdenka Willis

Zdenka Willis, a member of Senior Executive Service, is the Director of the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS®) Program. U.S. IOOS is a coordinated network of people and technology that work together to generate and disseminate continuous data on our coastal waters, Great Lakes, and oceans. Prior to her assignment as Director of the U.S. IOOS Program, Ms. Willis served as Director of NOAA’s National Oceanographic Data Center. Ms. Willis is a retired Navy Captain with career service as a Meteorology and Oceanography officer in the United States Navy. She has promoted interagency cooperation as the Naval Deputy to NOAA; worldwide sea ice analysis and forecasting as Director of the National Ice Center; and as the satellite and operations officer Naval Polar Oceanography Center. While the Director of the National Ice Center, she initiated a visiting scientist program, which attracted post-doctorate researchers focused on the Arctic and Antarctic. Her meteorological background includes weather forecasting for Naval aircraft as the Officer in Charge of the Naval Oceanography Command Detachment, Oceana Virginia and for Navy vessels at the Naval Eastern Oceanography Center, Norfolk Virginia. Ms. Willis has a background in the collection of oceanographic data onboard the USNS Harkness and USNS Maury survey vessels and in the electronic navigational charting as Deputy Navigator of the Navy. Her other relevant Naval positions are the director of the Strategic Policy Forum (a Congressional and Executive Branch crisis simulation for Members of Congress, senior Executive branch officials, and military leaders) and adjunct professor in the Strategic Leadership Department at the Industrial College for the Armed Forces. Ms. Willis received her Bachelor’s Degree in Marine Science from the University of South Carolina. She received a Master’s degree in Meteorology and Oceanography from the Naval Postgraduate School and a Master’s Degree in National Strategy from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.

David Yeomans

My interest in meteorology started early. By the age of 7, I was watching The Weather Channel for hours on end, and at age 9, I was a registered storm spotter and kept monthly climate records for the National Weather Service from my home weather station. I went on to study meteorology at the University of Miami, and assisted with a published work on water vapor’s role in climate change and enhanced upper-tropospheric warming. I attended the University of Miami’s RSMAS campus for graduate school, studying mid-tropospheric humidity’s role in tropical cyclogenesis under Dr. Brian Soden. Currently, I’m the weekend morning meteorologist at KXAN News in Austin, TX. I am very lucky to be able to come back to my hometown and do what I’m passionate about. In addition to doing the weather on weekends, I report on environmental topics three days a week.

Jeffrey Yuhas

Jeffrey Yuhas is an earth science, meteorology, and physics teacher at Concord-Carlisle (MA) High School. He earned his bachelor’s degree in geology from Brown University and his master’s degree from the Pennsylvania State University. Mr. Yuhas has taught high school science for 16 years, following an 8 career in environmental consulting. He is a member of the AMS Board of Outreach and Public Education and the Local Chapters Affairs Committee. For the past four years he has brought his high school students to the AMS Annual Meeting. He and his students have presented in the K-12 Initiatives Session of the Symposium on Education and have placed in the Student Chapter Poster contest. He also advises Concord- Carlisle Weather Services, which provides local forecasts for the school radio station, local access television, and on Facebook.

Jon Zeitler

Jon Zeitler serves as the Science and Operations Officer for the National Weather Service Austin/San Antonio Forecast Office in New Braunfels, Texas. He previously served in National Weather Service forecaster positions at Houston/Galveston, Texas; Rapid City, South Dakota; and College Station, Texas. Before joining the National Weather Service, Jon was a climatologist at the Southeast Regional Climate Center in Columbia, South Carolina, and at the Texas State Climatologist’s Office at Texas A&M University. Jon holds a Bachelor of Science degree in meteorology from Iowa State University, and a Master of Science degree in meteorology from Texas A&M University. His professional interests are: decision support, safety and preparedness, and severe local storms. He has authored a number of papers on those and other topics. Jon is a member of the National Weather Association and American Meteorological Society, and he has served on committees, boards, and as editor or reviewer for both organizations. Jon is married to Molly Zeitler (a middle school social studies teacher), and they have two daughters, Zoe and Becca. Jon’s personal interests are travel, storm chasing, downhill skiing, hiking, Australian Rules Football, and Formula One auto racing. He also volunteers with the New Braunfels High School Band.