WORK

In January 2025, I began serving as the National Weather Service (NWS) Severe Weather Program Coordinator. In this role, I lead strategic planning and national-level coordination of severe weather policies, ensuring alignment across operations, research, and training. This includes facilitating cross-agency, cross-program, and cross-portfolio collaboration between scientists, communicators, emergency managers, and stakeholders; responding to congressional and public inquiries; delivering science-informed briefings and reports; and guiding strategic updates impacting severe weather protocols nationwide, including the issuance of tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings.

Previously, I was a meteorologist at the NWS Forecast Office in Rapid City, SD, where I began working in September 2017. For over seven years, I delivered critical, time-sensitive forecasts during high-impact weather events across western SD and northeastern WY. To accomplish the NWS’s mission of protecting life and property, I collaborated closely with emergency managers, media, and other partners to ensure clear communication of weather-related risks.

Outside of NWS Rapid City, I was a member of NWS Central Region’s Convective Warning Improvement Project (CWIP) team. My primary contributed deliverables for the team were the production of several training modules in the Quasi-Linear Convective System (QLCS) Curriculum, three modules focused on high-shear, low-CAPE (HSLC) severe weather, and QLCS Radar Feature Catalog entries. The team’s work “developing and delivering exceptional training which resulted in an improved tornado warning decision-making process within the NWS” was recognized with a NOAA Administrator’s Award in 2021.

Before joining the NWS full time, I was a Pathways Intern at NWS Raleigh while completing my Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences at NC State University. My primary research interest is severe convection, particularly that occurring within HSLC environments common across the southeastern U.S. in the cool season and overnight. The Severe Hazards in Environments with Reduced Buoyancy (SHERB) parameters were developed during my M.S. research.

Professional contributions outside of the workplace include membership on the American Meteorological Society (AMS)’s Severe Local Storms Committee and the National Weather Association (NWA)’s Weather Analysis and Forecasting (WAF) Committee. Additionally, I serve as an Editor for AMS’s Weather and Forecasting.