January 12, 2024 – Congratulations to Ari Tickner for successfully defending his M.S. thesis looking at the predictability of Tropical Storm Erin’s overland reintensification in 2007! Ari is currently working with Wisconsin Emergency Management, a division of the Wisconsin Dept. of Military Affairs. Kudos, Ari!
September 25, 2023 – We welcome two new members to the group this semester, Kathryn Boyle and Brian Foster! Kathryn joins us from the University of Georgia and Brian joins us from NC State. Both are working toward their M.S. and are funded by a UWM Discovery and Innovation Grant joint between Prof. Evans and Prof. Sergey Kravtsov. Prof. Evans is Kathryn’s lead advisor, whereas Prof. Kravtsov is Brian’s lead advisory. Welcome to both Kathryn and Brian!
July 20, 2023 – Congratulations to Dillon Blount on becoming a published author! His M.S. thesis research, collaborative with the Storm Prediction Center, in which we developed a novel objective method of clustering vertical soundings by their boundary-layer structures, was published in the July 2023 issue of Weather and Forecasting!
April 13, 2023 – Congratulations to Drew Hickok on being selected to participate in this year’s NCAR Undergraduate Leadership Workshop! This one-week program, to be held at NCAR in Boulder this June, helps develop students’ leadership potential while introducing them to a wide range of careers in the atmospheric and related sciences.
February 19, 2023 – Dillon, Michael, and Drew each presented their research at last month’s 103rd AMS Annual Meeting in Denver! Prof. Evans, Dillon, and Michael hosted UWM’s Career and Graduate School Fair booth, while Prof. Evans attended to a lot of meetings (many as a result of his new appointment as the AMS’s Incoming STAC Commissioner) throughout the week. It was nice to see so many people in-person again!
October 26, 2022 – Congratulations to alumna Anna Kaminski on her climatology of northeast United States atmospheric rivers being accepted for publication in the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology! Anna led this research over a multi-year period, with assistance from three mentors (including Prof. Evans) and five other students, and we’re all excited to see the paper reach the publication stage. Kudos, Anna, on the first of undoubtedly many publications to come!
August 4, 2022 – Congratulations to Michael Vossen, who today learned that he is a recipient of the UWM Graduate Student Excellence Fellowship for the 2022-23 school year! The $2,500 fellowship seeks to provide advanced degree students the support they need to pursue their research endeavors, complete their studies and share discoveries with others in their fields. Congratulations, Michael!
July 21, 2022 – Two new papers from our group are now available in Early Online Release from the AMS! “An updated investigation of post-transformation intensity, structural, and duration extremes for extratropically transitioning North Atlantic tropical cyclones,” led by Giorgio Sarro, is in press for final publication in Monthly Weather Review. “Convectively generated negative potential vorticity enhancing the jet stream through an inverse energy cascade during the extratropical transition of hurricane Irma,” led by Dr. Kevin Prince, is in press for final publication in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences. A brief summary of each can be found on our Publications page. Kudos to Giorgio and Kevin for their work reaching publication!
July 15, 2022 – Congratulations to Dr. Kevin Prince on the successful defense of his dissertation yesterday! Dr. Prince’s Ph.D. research had multiple foci, including developing and analyzing a climatology of indirect tropical-cyclone interactions and quantifying the impact of convectively generated negative potential vorticity on the midlatitude jet stream preceding the extratropical transition of North Atlantic TC Irma (2017). Dr. Prince will soon begin a National Research Council Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Naval Research Laboratory in Monterey, CA!
July 5, 2022 – We welcome a new group member this fall, Collin DeYoung! Collin graduated from Central Michigan University this spring with a B.S. in Meteorology. His M.S. research will focus on validating model forecasts of the marine atmospheric boundary layer over Lake Michigan, supported by as many radiosonde and instrumented drone observations as we can collect!
May 28, 2022 – Kevin and Michael presented their research at this month’s 35th AMS Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology in New Orleans! It was great to see everyone in-person for the first time in over two years, and it was a great week of learning, developing new research collaborations, and catching up with friends.
April 14, 2022 – Congratulations to Dillon Blount on being selected to attend this year’s AMS Summer Policy Colloquium in Washington D.C.! Dillon was selected for the colloquium with full financial support through a competitive nationwide application process.
April 6, 2022 – Congratulations to group alumni Dr. Caitlin Crossett, who successfully defended her Ph.D. at the University of Vermont last week, and Giorgio Sarro, who received Honorable Mention as part of this year’s NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program! Dr. Crossett will soon begin a postdoctoral fellowship at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York. We’re proud of you both!
February 10, 2022 – Congratulations to Michael Vossen on receiving a Top Student Presentation award for his oral presentation on the overland intensification of tropical cyclones at January’s AMS Annual Meeting!
January 27, 2022 – Kevin, Michael, Dillon, and Michelle all presented their research at this week’s 102nd AMS Annual Meeting! While it was not the return to in-person meetings we have all been looking forward to for some time, it was nevertheless a great opportunity to share what we’ve been working on in the last year or so with the community!
December 20, 2021 – Congratulations to Michelle Spencer for successfully defending her M.S. thesis, “The Influences of Sea-Surface Temperature Uncertainty on Cool-Season High-Shear, Low CAPE Severe Weather Event Predictability in the Southeast United States,” on Friday, December 10th! Michelle, her thesis committee, and several graduate students celebrated her successful defense by taking a trip down the three-story slide in Harbor View Park outside of the School of Freshwater Sciences. We hope to submit Michelle’s research to a journal for review and eventual publication in the first half of 2022. Sadly, we’re also bidding farewell to Michelle, as she begins her Ph.D. at the University of Oklahoma in January!
July 21, 2021 – Congratulations to Anna Kaminski on being awarded this year’s American Meteorological Society’s Father James B. Macelwane Annual Award in Meteorology! The award carries a $1,000 stipend and partial travel support to the next American Meteorological Society annual meeting. The Macelwane Award is the most prestigious student research award offered by the American Meteorological Society, and one of the most prestigious such awards in all of the atmospheric and related sciences.
June 16, 2021 – Prof. Evans was named as the 2021 recipient of UWM’s Faculty Distinguished Faculty Service Award andUWM Office of Research/UWM Foundation Research Award! The former recognizes outstanding service to the university community, whereas the latter recognizes Assistant and Associate Professors with demonstrated potential for achieving distinction in their disciplines. Each award carries a $1,500 stipend. Prof. Evans will formally receive the awards at UWM’s 2021 Fall Awards Ceremony in October.
June 10, 2021 – Lots of news to report in this update! First, we’re excited to share that UWM’s Atmospheric Science programs, including our research group, will be moving to UWM’s School of Freshwater Sciences in the fall! We’re looking forward to working with our new colleagues and tweaking our major to better serve students’ needs. Next up, kudos to Anna Kaminski on graduating with her B.S.! She’ll work with Bob Hart at Florida State University as she pursues her M.S. beginning in August. Finally, we welcome Ari Tickner-Ernst, who will be joining our group this August as he begins his M.S. studies! Ari completed his B.S. at the University of Miami and is originally from Massachusetts. Welcome, Ari!
May 14, 2021 – Several current and former group members presented on their research during this week’s virtual 34th AMS Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology! Kevin Prince presented on his climatology of indirect tropical cyclone interactions facilitated by the midlatitude waveguide, Michael Vossen presented preliminary findings into tropical cyclone intensity evolution over land, and Giorgio Sarro presented on large-scale factors governing tropical cyclone evolution during and following extratropical transition!
March 4, 2021 – Congratulations to Kevin Prince on being named a UWM 2021-22 Distinguished Dissertation Fellow! The Distinguished Dissertation Fellow program recognizes the most excellent later-stage Ph.D. students across UWM’s campus. Only eighteen students received awards this year, placing Kevin in select company. Kudos, Kevin!
March 2, 2021 – Kudos to Kevin Prince and Anna Kaminski on being selected to participate in this summer’s Naval Research Enterprise Internship Program! Both Kevin and Anna will be working with scientists from the Naval Research Laboratory in Monterey, CA – in-person if public health conditions allow, remotely otherwise. Congratulations!
January 26, 2021 – Our group was well-represented at the 101st AMS Annual Meeting that was held virtually earlier this month! Prof. Evans spoke about careers in academia as part of the Student Conference and helped to facilitate a Town Hall meeting on The Climate Consensus multi-university outreach network. Kevin, Michael, Dillon, Michelle, and Anna all presented on their research throughout the week. While the meeting proved fruitful, it still wasn’t the same as being in person with everyone. Here’s to hoping for an in-person meeting in Houston in 2022!
October 6, 2020 – Kevin Prince’s first Ph.D.-related research has now been published in the October 2020 issue of Monthly Weather Review! Congratulations, Kevin!
August 5, 2020 – The first paper from Kevin Prince’s Ph.D. research, a climatology of indirect tropical cyclone interactions in the North Atlantic and western North Pacific basins, is now in press with Monthly Weather Review! Check out Prof. Evans’ Twitter announcement of the publication for highlights!
July 16, 2020 – Congratulations to Giorgio Sarro on being awarded this year’s American Meteorological Society’s Father James B. Macelwane Annual Award in Meteorology! The award carries a $1,000 stipend and partial travel support to the next American Meteorological Society annual meeting. The Macelwane Award is the most prestigious student research award offered by the American Meteorological Society, and one of the most prestigious such awards in all of the atmospheric and related sciences.
June 9, 2020 – To members of all underrepresented groups, but particularly black/African-American students and colleagues: I support you. I value you. I stand with you in affirming that what happened to George Floyd in Minneapolis, Ahmaud Arbery in southern Georgia, and countless others across the nation cannot stand. Nor, too, can the explicit and implicit structures in our society, and particularly in academia, that actively work against your success. But, this isn’t about me – it’s about you and your success. May my actions and words elevate you rather than bring attention to me.
May 11, 2020 – A hearty congratulations to Anna Kaminski for being named one of six UWM Senior Excellence in Research Award winners for the 2020-21 academic year! The Senior Excellence in Research Award is the highest recognition that an undergraduate researcher at UWM can receive and reflects sustained academic and research excellence throughout a student’s undergraduate career.
May 7, 2020 – Congratulations to Giorgio Sarro on receiving an Outstanding Presentation award for his presentation during the 2020 UWM Virtual Undergraduate Research Symposium! Giorgio was one of thirteen awardees (from over 250 entrants) across campus.
April 15, 2020 – Jesse Schaffer’s M.S. thesis research has now been published in the May 2020 issue of Monthly Weather Review! Congratulations, Jesse!
March 31, 2020 – Congratulations to Giorgio Sarro on receiving Honorable Mentions from the prestigious NSF and Ford Foundation Graduate Fellowship programs! Giorgio is one of only ten awardees (four awards, six Honorable Mentions) in the NSF’s Climate and Large-Scale Atmospheric Dynamics category this year, and he is the first student from UWM’s Atmospheric Science program since Leah Grant in 2011 to receive an NSF award.
March 15, 2020 – Jesse Schaffer’s M.S. thesis research using evolutionary programming to develop a new deterministic model for tropical cyclone intensity prediction and probabilistic model for rapid intensification and rapid weakening has been accepted for publication in Monthly Weather Review! Check it out in Early Online Release now!
January 22, 2020 – Congratulations to Giorgio Sarro, who was selected to receive an Outstanding Student Presentation award for his presentation at the 19th AMS Student Conference in Boston, MA last week! Giorgio joins Kevin Prince (2018) from our group as recent winners of Outstanding Student Presentation awards at the AMS Student Conference.
January 17, 2020 – Our group was well-represented at the 100th AMS Annual Meeting in Boston, MA this week! Prof. Evans was a facilitator for Monday’s “Leading Up!” session of the Early Career Professionals conference. Kevin Prince, Dillon Blount, Michelle Spencer, and Giorgio Sarro all presented on their research, with the latter two presenting in whole or in part on their summer REU research from last year. It was also a great week to catch up with alumni (hi, Alli and Caitlin!), meet with prospective graduate students, and stoke the pot of research ideas.
December 1, 2019 – Prof. Evans was recently selected to be an Affiliate Faculty member of the UWM/Marquette University Northwestern Mutual Data Science Institute! The Data Science Institute seeks to build on data-science expertise on each campus to better train students for data-driven careers, which dominate the atmospheric sciences (as they do many other fields).
August 26, 2019 – Congratulations to Giorgio Sarro, who recently received one of twenty Northwestern Mutual Data Science Institute Scholarships for 2019-20! A total of $85,000 was awarded to twenty undergraduate and graduate students at UWM with intended careers in data science and related fields. Way to go (again), Giorgio!
August 17, 2019 – Congratulations to Giorgio Sarro, who was recently named this year’s recipient of the NWA’s Dr. Roderick Scofield Scholarship in Meteorology! The scholarship honors the late Dr. Scofield and provides support to students finishing their undergraduate or graduate degree programs. Way to go, Giorgio!
May 24, 2019 – We’re excited to welcome three new members to the group! Joining us in fall are Dillon Blount from the Univ. of South Alabama and Michael Vossen from St. Cloud State, and joining us in spring is Michelle Spencer from Metro State Univ. in Denver. Welcome, everyone!
April 25, 2019 – Congrats to Jesse Schaffer on the successful defense of his M.S. thesis, in which he applied evolutionary programming machine-learning concepts to develop a new tropical-cyclone intensity prediction model, on April 22nd!
April 6, 2019 – Anna Kaminski and Giorgio Sarro presented their research at yesterday’s UWM’s 11th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium! Click on their names for videos of their presentations from the UWM Atmospheric Science Program’s Facebook page.
March 1, 2019 – Congratulations to Giorgio Sarro, who has accepted an offer from the Univ. of Vermont EPSCoR’s Basin Resilience to Extreme Events summer REU program! During the summer, Giorgio will work alongside group alumna Caitlin Crossett and her research advisors to identify the meteorological patterns associated with heavy precipitation events in the northeast United States.
January 11, 2019 – Congratulations to Giorgio Sarro and Anna Kaminski for being awarded UWM Office of Undergraduate Research SURF awards for the Spring 2019 semester! Giorgio will continue his research into the post-transition evolution of tropical cyclones, while Anna will continue her research toward developing a climatology of atmospheric rivers in the northeast United States.
November 16, 2018 – David Nevius’ M.S. thesis research has now been published in the December 2018 issue of Weather and Forecasting! Congratulations, David!
November 1, 2018 – Our collaborative research with the Storm Prediction Center on sounding verification for regional versus convection-allowing models has been published in the December 2018 issue of Weather and Forecasting!
October 31, 2018 – Prof. Evans’ participation in the Earth Science Women’s Network’s #dayofscience fundraiser was featured in the UWM College of Letters & Science’s InFocus newsletter this month!
October 26, 2018 – David Nevius’ M.S. thesis research into WRF-ARW-modeled capping inversions has been accepted for publication in Weather and Forecasting! Look for it in Early Online Release now!
October 4, 2018 – Collaborative research with the Storm Prediction Center on sounding verification for regional versus convection-allowing models has been accepted for publication in Weather and Forecasting! Look for it in Early Online Release now!
September 27, 2018 – Kevin Prince’s M.S. thesis research has now been published in the October 2018 issue of the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology! Congratulations, Kevin!
August 20, 2018 – Kevin Prince’s M.S. thesis research on intense Andean Mountain cold surges has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology! Look for it in Early Online Release now!
August 6, 2018 – Congrats to Aidan Kuroski on the successful defense on his M.S. thesis on August 2nd! Aidan will soon begin his career with the NWS Milwaukee/Sullivan, WI office.
April 30, 2018 – A new Mentoring Resources page has been added to the Education section of the site. Check it out for more information on mentoring programs across the atmospheric and related sciences!
April 24, 2018 – Congrats to Kevin Prince (April 23rd) and David Nevius (April 24th) on the successful defenses of their M.S. theses!
April 23, 2018 – Prof. Evans recently conducted three interviews at UWM, one about April’s weather in Wisconsin, one about Innovative Weather, and one about the new Atmospheric Science M.S. and Ph.D. degrees!
March 7, 2018 – Congrats to Kevin Prince, who was selected as one of two graduate student winners in the 17th AMS Student Conference poster competition in January with the 98th Annual AMS Meeting in Austin, TX!
February 19, 2018 – Prof. Evans was quoted by Weather Underground today in an article about the inland intensification of TC Kelvin in northwest Australia.
February 9, 2018 – Prof. Evans was named as part of the inaugural class for the American Meteorological Society’s Early Career Leadership Academy! The workshop capstone will be held in Washington, D.C. in late April.
January 7, 2018 – Prof. Evans was formally awarded the Editor’s Award for Monthly Weather Review and Weather and Forecasting at the AMS 2018 Annual Meeting in Austin, TX today!
November 29, 2017 – Our study on the influence of MPEX dropsonde observations on ensemble convection initiation forecasts, with alumna Alli Keclik as lead author, has been published in the December 2017 issue of Monthly Weather Review!
October 13, 2017 – A new review on extratropical transition (“The Extratropical Transition of Tropical Cyclones. Part I: Cyclone Evolution and Direct Impacts”), with Prof. Evans as lead author, has been published in the November 2017 issue of Monthly Weather Review!
August 21, 2017 – We welcome one new group member this year: Jesse Schaffer from Hobart and William Smith Colleges! Jesse is currently pursuing an M.S. degree under the join supervision of Profs. Evans and Paul Roebber.
August 1, 2017 – Prof. Evans was recently awarded an Editors’ Award from the American Meteorological Society “[for] thorough, constructive, and insightful reviews of an impressive number of manuscripts” in Monthly Weather Review and Weather and Forecasting.
May 20, 2017 – Bryan Burlingame’s M.S. thesis research has now been published in the June 2017 issue of Weather and Forecasting! Congrats, Bryan!
May 12, 2017 – Congrats to David Nevius, co-recipient of our program’s Dhirendra Sikdar Scholarship in Atmospheric Science, reflecting excellence in graduate study!
April 27, 2017 – Caitlin Crossett successfully defended her M.S. thesis research this afternoon. Congratulations, Caitlin! We hope to submit a manuscript based on her research to an AMS journal later this year.
April 4, 2017 – Caitlin Crossett is lead author (with her undergraduate advisor Prof. Nick Metz at Hobart and William Smith Colleges as co-author) on a new Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology manuscript about African cold surges. See it in Early Online Release now!
February 26, 2017 – David Nevius is second author (with Prof. Evans’ cousin Prof. John Knox at the Univ. of Georgia as lead author) on a new Bulletin of the AMS manuscript about wet bulb temperature calculation approximations. See it in Early Online Release now!
February 17, 2017 – Congratulations to group alum Brock Burghardt on the successful defense of his Ph.D. dissertation, “Performance Characteristics of Convection-Allowing Ensemble Forecasts with Varied Physics Parameterizations,” completed under Prof. Brian Ancell’s supervision at Texas Tech University! Brock will soon begin employment with WeatherBELL Analytics.
February 15, 2017 – Caleb Grunzke’s M.S. thesis research has now been published in the March 2017 Monthly Weather Review! Congratulations, Caleb!
January 14, 2017 – Prof. Evans and Caitlin Crossett will be attending next week’s AMS conference in Seattle. We’ll be at the Career Fair on Saturday and Sunday and giving talks late Wednesday morning and early Wednesday afternoon in Tahoma 3 with the NWP/WAF conference. Prof. Evans will also be participating as a mentor at the Student and Early Career Speed Networking event on Monday night. We hope to see you there!
December 28, 2016 – Our work on trends in Atlantic hurricane season length (Karloski and Evans 2016, J. Climate) has recently been featured in the Washington Post. Earlier in the year, it was featured in The Daily Beast.
November 19, 2016 – Congratulations to Aidan Kuroski, who finished first overall and first in the graduate student category in the WxChallenge for Reno, NV over the last two weeks!
November 11, 2016 – Congratulations to group alum Brock Burghardt, who won first place in the student poster competition at the 28th AMS Severe Local Storms conference in Portland, OR! His poster detailed his Ph.D. work at Texas Tech into methods for increasing ensemble spread for mesoscale applications.
October 16, 2016 – Congratulations to Caitlin Crossett, who recently was accepted into the Ph.D. program in hydrometeorology at the University of Vermont! Starting next fall, she will be supported by a Research Assistantship to conduct research on regional hydrometeorology and hydroclimatology through an NSF EPSCoR grant.
August 24, 2016 – We welcome three new group members: Aidan Kuroski from SUNY-Brockport, David Nevius from the University of Georgia, and Kevin Prince from Central Michigan University! All are presently pursuing their M.S. degree.
August 1, 2016 – Congratulations to Alli Keclik, Caleb Grunzke, and Alex Manion on their new jobs! Alli is now a Meteorologist Intern with the NWS in Chanhassen, MN, Caleb is now a Research Associate with CIMSS in Norman, OK, and Alex is now a Meteorologist Intern with the NWS in Pontiac, MI!
May 22, 2016 – Congratulations to Alli Keclik, Bryan Burlingame, and Caleb Grunzke on the successful defenses of their M.S. thesis research and on graduating this semester! Now the job hunt, and manuscript preparation, begin!
May 13, 2016 – Congratulations to Caleb Grunzke and Caitlin Crossett, joint recipients of our program’s Dhirendra Sikdar Scholarship in Atmospheric Science, reflecting excellence in graduate study!