Experience¶
Employment History¶
Discovery Partners Institute (DPI) Climate Hub¶
Extreme Weather Events Statistician January 2025 - Present
At DPI Climate Hub, I work for a team that develops a high resolution weather forecast model for the state of Illinois called Aeris-IQ.
My role is to develop data pipelines that evaluate the performance of different model variables. Using a combination of Python and bash scripts, I have nearly completed the development of a pipeline that assesses Aeris-IQ snow depth forecasts. Once complete, I anticipate developing similar pipelines for snowfall and wind forecasts.
As progress is made, I keep the rest of the team informed through regular meetings and presentations describing how the pipeline works and what it creates. We then collaborate as a team to discuss next steps and continue to shape the development of the pipeline.
Mathnasium¶
Math Instructor November 2025 - Present
During November of 2025, I began work as a math instructor at Mathnasium. As an instructor, I assist K-12 students with material provided by Mathnasium appropriate for the students’ math abilities as well as their school work. Each hour, I work with 2-3 students, helping them with difficult problems, teaching them new topics, and assessing their understanding of the material. I also communicate with parents, dicussing their child’s performance and progress.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency¶
Air Quality Researcher and Data Scientist
December 2024 - May 2025
At the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, I worked as a contractor employed by Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU). I was a part of the Atmospheric and Environmental Systems Modeling Division (CMAQ) assisting in the development of the Community Multiscale Air Quality model. While in this position I:
Created and deployed a documentation website for the Community Regional Atmospheric Chemistry Multiphase Mechanism (CRACMM) on GitHub Pages using Sphinx Python software and C-shell scripting in a Linux environment
Developed a Python tool for comparing atmospheric chemistry observations from aircraft to CMAQ model output. Click here for more details on the tool.
Assisted model development by analyzing output data from CMAQ to evaluate the model’s performance and determine where to focus attention to address errors. Some of this work is included in an article that has been submitted for publication in the ChemRxiv journal.
Collaborated with agency scientists to advance CMAQ performance research and CRACMM website development, presenting on each topic during branch and division-wide meetings
Unfortunately, due to restructuring at the EPA, my contract expired in May 2025 and was not renewed, putting me out of work.
The University of Utah - Department of Atmospheric Science¶
Research Assistant
June 2022 - August 2024
At the University of Utah, I was a fully funded graduate student pursuing a master’s degree in Atmospheric Science under the supervision of Dr. Zhaoxia Pu. My role as a research assistant was to investigate drought in the western United States during 2021 and 2022. Overall, I addressed three topics related to the drought:
What were the synoptic scale atmospheric features present at seasonal time scales that led to drought conditions during the summer and winter of 2021 and 2022 across the Pacific coastal states and the Inter-Mountain West?
How did soil moisture respond to the drought and how did the response vary between different Köppen climate zones?
Is it possible that drought in the northwest United States can influence the North American Monsoon, manipulating the amount of precipitation in the southwest United States during the summer and early fall? If so, did the drought during 2021 and 2022 drive an intensification of the monsoon, creating wetter conditions across the Southwest and ameliorating drought conditions in the region?
All three topics were included in my master’s thesis. Most of the work done to address the first topic, was included in an article published in August of 2025 in the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology titled The Synoptic-Scale Circulation during the Western U.S. Drought of 2021 and 2022.
As a research assistant, I:
Sourced a variety of datasets to address the research questions that I developed. These data were often in GRIB or NetCDF formats and were arranged into either 2-D or 3-D grids. Some examples include:
Ran the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to investigate drought in the western United States. I produced over 20 simulations in total, many containing several months of model output.
Created Python packages to process, manipulate, quality control, and visualize environmental datasets in a Linux environment. Sometimes, these Python packages were designed to process up to 25 TB at a time, requiring an emphasis on code efficiency. Click here to learn more about these packages.
Analyzed the processed datasets and produced a wide variety of maps, graphs, charts, and animations using Matplotlib
Published research manuscripts based on my findings
Collaborated with my supervisor and other members of my research group to improve our work and provide feedback on other projects
Presented the results of my work at three American Meteorological Society conferences in both poster and slide show formats
Research Associate
September 2024 - November 2024
After graduation, I was promoted from a research assistant to a research associate. In this role, I continued to develop my research on drought in the West, primarily adding to my work done on drought-monsoon relationships and preparing two articles for publication.
I left this position voluntarily during November 2024 after completing all tasks set before me and accepting a position as a contractor at the EPA.
Plymouth State University - Office of Academic Support Services¶
Math and Physics Tutor
September 2021 - May 2022
At the start of my senior year of college my professor for Atmospheric Dynamics recommended I become the tutor for the course. This began a year at Plymouth State’s Office of Academic Support Services where I tutored physics students and some calculus students. The students were all paired to work with me one on one. I had at least one student at a time throughout the year, and I regularly met with each student once or twice a week for either an hour or an hour and a half.
I left this position when I graduated college and moved to Utah.
Plymouth State University - Math Activities Center¶
Math Tutor
August 2019 - December 2019
After my freshman year calculus professor recommended that I become a math tutor, I joined Plymouth State’s Math Activity Center (MAC). I worked at the Center during the fall of my sophomore year, assisting students that arrived looking for help with algebra, pre-calculus, and calculus. Students who came in were drop-ins without appointments, often requiring me to be working with multiple students at a time, each with different sets of coursework.
Unfortunately, I was unable to fit tutoring into my schedule during the spring semester of 2020, ending my time at the MAC.
Education¶
The University of Utah¶
Master of Science in Atmospheric Sciences
August 2022 - August 2024
Plymouth State University¶
Bachelor of Science in Meteorology, Minor in Technical Mathematics
August 2018 - May 2022
3.9 GPA
Graduated summa cum laude
Received the Outstanding Meteorology Graduating Senior Award
Made the President’s list for all semesters (indicating a semester GPA of higher than 3.74)
Participated in Plymouth State’s Student Chapter of the American Meteorological Society and Catholic Campus Ministry for all four years
Burlington High School¶
High School Diploma
August 2014 - June 2018
3.7
Participated in Science Olympiad during the 2015-2016 academic year
Volunteering¶
Plymouth State Weather Center¶
Web Developer
June 2021 - August 2022
Between the end of my junior year of college and the beginning of graduate school, I helped develop webpages and backend code on the Plymouth State Weather Center website. I used a combination of the Flask Python package and HTML to create the pages. All products I helped develop show real time data. Check out some examples of my work by clicking here.
Catholic Campus Ministry¶
Outreach Coordinator and Meeting Leader
August 2019 - May 2022
As outreach coordinator and meeting leader for Catholic Campus Ministry, my responsibilities were to:
Perform all external outreach to guest speakers and any additional external parties the group needed to collaborate with
Plan and prepare weekly group meetings and additional events
Assist in the facilitation of group meetings
American Meteorological Society, Plymouth State Student Chapter¶
Outreach Coordinator
August 2021 - May 2022
As the outreach coordinator for AMS, my responsibilities were to:
Communicate with professional meteorologists to coordinate and plan meetings that included guest speakers
Assist the event planner with external communication for certain group outings
Collaborate with other AMS executive board members to help plan meetings and events