BS Atmospheric Science, State University of New York at Albany, 2003
MS Meteorology, University of Utah, 2005

I'm interested in cyclogenesis and frontogenesis over complex terrain, as well as the effects of complex terrain on cool season precipitation.

My PhD research will focus on fronts associated with Intermountain cyclones (cyclones that form to the lee of the Cascades and Sierra and affect the Intermountain region).

For my master's thesis, while we were developing a climatology of Intermountain cyclones using the new North American Regional Reanalysis, we discovered what is known as "spurious grid-scale convection" occuring in the reanalysis. This occurs when the convective parameterization in a model is unable to remove sufficient amounts of instability, resulting in grid-scale convective overturning; essentially the model is trying to resolve a thunderstorm explicitly, which is not possible with 32km grid spacing. This became the focus of my masters thesis, which I defended in July of 2005.

Current Teaching Efforts:
TA - Meteo 5530/6530/5810/6810: Synoptic Meteorology and Weather Discussion
Fall 2006/Spring 2007

Past Teaching Efforts:
TA - Meteo 1010: Severe and Unusual Weather
Fall 2005/Spring 2006