Biography
I am currently an assistant professor of atmospheric science in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at Purdue University. I study the dynamics of severe convective storms and tornadoes through a combination of analysis of field observations and high-resolution numerical modeling, with an emphasis on how cloud and precipitation processes interact with other dynamical and thermodynamical processes in these storms. I am involved with the Verification of the Origin of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment-Southeast U.S. (VORTEX-SE) research program and have been a co-PI or PI on three grants from the National Oceanagraphic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in support of disdrometer observations and analyses and retrospective numerical simulations of potentially tornadic storms during the field program. I currently serve on the VORTEX-SE scientific steering committee, as well as the planning committee for the upcoming Non-Classic Tornadic Storms (NCTS) field program in the SE U.S. Prior to arriving at Purdue in August 2015, I was a Research Scientist at the Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms (CAPS) at the University of Oklahoma. I earned an M.S. and Ph.D. in Meteorology from OU in 2004 and 2009, respectively, working with Professor Ming Xue in the School of Meteorology/CAPS. I earned my B.S. in Atmospheric Dynamics in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Purdue University (prior to the addition of the Planetary group!) in 2002. Outside of work, I enjoy spending time with my family, stormchasing, engaging in some light amateur astronomy, and generally being a science and computer geek!
Helpful Resources for Scientists
Scientific computing and authoring
"Best Practices for Scientific Computing" by Greg Wilson (Mozilla Corp., software-carpentry.org) et al.
"Scientific Python Cookiecutter" An extremeley useful template for packaging your scientific projects and associated code.
"Overleaf at Purdue" Write and share LaTeX documents online!
"Our lab's GitHub repositories", hosted at Purdue.