Since 2019 I had been splitting my time between being a meteorology professor and overseeing the General Studies program at MSU Denver.  On August 1, 2023, I'll be handing the General Studies program off to a trusted colleague and rededicating myself to teaching meteorology.   Meteorology is a fast-paced field and I'm looking forward to concentrating on my original love of weather, climate, and science, full time.   In Fall 2023 I'm teaching five courses in person:  MTR 1600 Global Climate Change, MTR 2020 Weather and Climate Lab, MTR 3340 Climate Change Science ..read more

Saturday was our first hot day of the year on the Front Range (~79F) and I had spring fever and ran to the nursery in Longmont to find more petunia seeds.  I regretted not putting my hair up as it stung my eyes while the wind whipped it around in the parking lot.  While in the store at 3:15pm, I got a call from the Boulder Police.  Confused, I said through my mask, “…Hello?”  The automated message informed me that my house was under a mandatory evacuation order due to a growing wildfire.  Panic set in immediately, but only a second later did the recording clarify that ..read more

Rather than try to update this space with happenings from the last year and a half and the many conferences and events (Salt Lake City, Boise State, Orlando, Phoenix), I'll just say things have been busy!  A team of us at MSU Denver renovated our General Studies program beginning in June of 2018.  In the end I couldn't seem to give up control of the program we had built, but hadn't yet implemented, so I've become the Director of General Studies.  This is a brand new position at MSU Denver and this should help build a new era of program cohesiveness as we continue to strive to ed ..read more

I attended the American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting 2018 in Austin, Texas last week.  I was there Sunday until Thursday and I'm afraid if I let the semester start before I take some time to process the trip, I might forget all of the great things I learned. I flew out early Sunday morning and not only was everyone on my bus going to AMS from Boulder, but we joined even more of them on the plane to Austin.  It was great seeing an old professor I used to TA for, a good friend, and I even sat next to an old student.  My friend Keren and I were at the same hotel and went ..read more

Jenny Shepard, a senior meteorology student doing a directed study with me this semester won an award for her poster at the Earth and Atmospheric Science fall research poster conference!  She'll be presenting this at the American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting in August.  She'll be at the student conference Sunday, Exhibit Hall 5, 6:15-8:15.  She's S26. Former student Shauna is leading our other poster, which will be similar, but more precipitation-focused.  This one is Tuesday in Exhibit hall 3, 3:45-5:30 #559. Finally, I'm giving a talk on a programming projec ..read more

The meteorology program ordered 1,000 eclipse glasses and gave them out throughout the summer and on the day of the eclipse.  I made sure all EAS classes that morning had a supply of glasses.  I also partnered with Student Activities (Thanks Diana Ibarra!) since we were both planning eclipse parties, why not join forces?  Our Student Chapter of the American Meteorological Society hosted a booth, the physics department hosted a booth, and student activities had their booths for handing out their 5,000 sets of MSU Denver eclipse glasses!  Wow!  I was able to print up a b ..read more

Monday, August 21st, 11:47am—First day of classes! 100% totality of the moon going in front of the sun is only visible north and east of here, but here in Denver we can see 93% totality!  You will want to be outside from 11:40-11:50am at the very least.  The next total solar eclipse visible from Colorado isn’t until 2045.  Don’t miss this one!  Never look directly at the sun without eclipse glasses!  Sunglasses are not strong enough.   Eclipse timeline Eclipse begins 10:23am 93% Totality in Denver:  11:47am—lasts about 2 minutes Eclipse ends 1:14am Where ..read more

I created this flowchart to emphasize how important it is for meteorology majors to get started on their math and physics courses very early on.  Grab your own copy from the bulletin board outside of SI 2003.   One day I was on a roll making videos for my online course and took a break to throw this meteorology program recruiting video together.  https://youtu.be/T2jOViIoe4Y  Enjoy ..read more

On Earth Day a global March for Science was organized and our main local march in Colorado was just down the street from our campus in Denver, so we met around 9:00 for coffee and bagels, then marched from the Science building to Civic Center Park.  We had professors, our EAS advisor Karen, students, alumni, and friends joining us in the march.  The march was one of the most positive and uplifting events I've ever attended.  Yes, us scientists are commonly introverted and not huge fans of crowds so we weren't your usual activist chanters.  Yes it was raining and in some cas ..read more

Join me in my online MTR 1600 Global Climate Change course this summer.  It fulfills the global diversity requirement as well as 3 credits of the science requirement for general studies.  (Note for MTR majors-- this can't count for your global diversity, sorry!)  It's an 8-week course that starts June 5, so we're done by July 29th.  The course is set up as a series of videos with weekly quizzes, four country assignments, and a midterm and final.  Here's a view of the schedule I used last summer, which I set up so students can always work one week ahead in case of a pla ..read more