Jason (Jay) Shafer successfully defends his Doctoral Dissertation in June 2005.

The Department of Meteorology announces that Jay Shafer successfully defended his Doctoral Dissertation entitled "Topographic and diabatic influences on baroclinic storm evolution over the Intermountain West" on June 27, 2005.  The dissertation research was conducted under the direction of Associate Professor (and Chair as of July 1, 2005) Jim Steenburgh, with Supervisory Committee members Lance Bosart, John Horel, Jan Paegle, and David Schultz.  This research involves a climatology of strong western U.S. cold fronts and their development over the Intermountain region.  Jay is a native of New Jersey.  A love for mountains and weather steered his Master's thesis research (also at the U), in which he analyzed the structure and evolution of a winter storm over the complex terrain of the Western United States.  He has accepted an assistant professor position at Lyndon State College in northeastern Vermont, where he will teach and inspire future generations of meteorologists.