I am the Associate Director for the Cooperative Institute for Severe and High-Impact Weather Research and Operations (CIWRO) at the University of Oklahoma’s National Weather Center and I am an Instructor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability. I am also the Manager of the DOE Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Program Data Quality Office, located within CIMMS. I have lived and worked in Norman since August 1995 after migrating from the Illinois State Water Survey at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I received the College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences Dean’s Award for Outstanding Service in 2011 and 2017. In 2021, along with Ken Kehoe, I received an Annual Award for Excellence in Research Grants from the university for our ARM Program Data Quality Office Project.
I am the faculty advisor for OU Green Week and for the Geography and Environmental Sustainability Club. I was named the OU Student Government Association Outstanding Faculty Member in April 2017, and was given a College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences Dean’s Award for Outstanding Teaching in September 2017. In 2021, along with Angela Person, I received the 2021 Recognition for Environmental Stewardship, from the university’s Environmental Concerns Committee, for our Environment Sustainability Working Group of undergraduate research interns. I teach GEOG 3443, Environment and Society, which takes a critical look at human-environment relations past, present, and future. It is a required course for some majors and a Gen Ed upper division elective for others. I also have taught ENST 4983, Environmental Studies Capstone, during spring semesters.
Research wise, I am interested in place-based risk perception, Indigenous understandings of weather and climate, environmental discourse, and agricultural land use in relation to drought.
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