Curriculum Vitae

I am currently a research scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Severe and High-Impact Weather Research and Operations (CIWRO), where I work with the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) as the physical sciences coordinator for the VORTEX-SE/VORTEX-USA program.  I also serve as the coordinating scientist for NOAA-supported teams in the Propagation, Evolution and Rotation in Linear Storms (PERiLS) field campaign.

I completed my B.S. in meteorology at Valparaiso University in May 2012 and my M.S. and Ph.D. in atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville in May 2015 and December 2019, respectively. My Ph.D. research documented observed flow enhancement and thermodynamic profile changes atop the Sand Mountain plateau and in the surrounding valleys in northeastern Alabama and how those environmental modifications might lead to conditions more favorable for tornadogenesis atop Sand Mountain.

Other past research I have conducted has focused on:

• Detailed storm-scale documentation and analysis of the April 2011 super outbreak, including evolutionary paths of the supercells, mesovortex evolution of the first QLCS, and environmental influences on storm-scale evolution;
• Tornado damage analysis, with emphases on damage to forests and use of high-resolution aerial imagery in damage surveys;
• The use of the Multi-Year Reanalysis of Severe Storms (MYRORSS) dataset in diagnosing supercell traits, including cell morphology and tornado risk;
• The influence of cell mergers on supercell evolution; and
• Analysis of observed quasi-linear convective system (QLCS) mesovortex characteristics and behavior, including improving the understanding of the causes of damage associated with QLCSs.

I have participated in numerous field campaigns, including (years of participation):

• PERiLS: Propagation, Evolution, and Rotation in Linear Storms (Springs 2022 and 2023);
• TORUS: Targeted Observations by Radar and UAS of Supercells (Spring 2022);
• VORTEX-SE: Verification of Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment – Southeast (Spring 2016-Spring 2020, including the Meso18-19 experiment);
• PECAN: Plains Elevated Convection at Night (Summer 2015);
• OWLeS: Ontario Winter Lake-effect Systems (Winter 2014);
• ABIDE-III: Atmospheric Boundary Identification and Delineation Experiment III (Summer 2013); and
• Other ad-hoc field operations, including numerous severe storm and boundary layer data collection deployments from 2013-2015 and Hurricane Isaac in August 2012.