We’d like to invite you to our PoEMS Spring Semester welcome event! Next Saturday (January 28), we’ll host a movie night watching an EMS-relevant (but perhaps scientifically questionable!) movie. Examples would include The Day After Tomorrow, Geostorm, etc. but we’re open to preferences.

Free food will be provided, with the plan to get pizzas from Snap Custom Pizza (like our picnic last August) and some other snacks. This will be in Room 529 of the Walker Building on campus. You’re welcome to drop in any time starting at 5:00 PM, with food arriving and the movie starting in the first hour. If movies aren’t your thing, feel free to bring a board game or 2 as well! Guests are welcome; we’ll just ask you to fill out this form to give us an approximate headcount, so we have the appropriate amount of food: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdrrpNhtvMdIDU-XksOoPYxi5vIiBjNbTll70kgPY2odWNosg/viewform?usp=sf_link

Dr. Jake Carstens, Meteorology and Atmospheric Science

Advised by Dr. Anthony Didlake, Jr. and Dr. Colin Zarzycki

Email: carstens@psu.edu

Twitter: @JakeCarstens

Website: carstensweather.com

I arrived at Penn State in August 2022, after completing my undergraduate and graduate studies at Florida State University. I was drawn to weather from a young age, but my interest in tropical meteorology stems from riding out Hurricane Hermine in 2016, my senior year at FSU. Hermine was the first of 3 hurricanes (along with Irma and Michael) that I covered with other students on the “FSU Weather” TV show, whose significant impacts in northern Florida motivated me to better understand hurricane physics and weather communication. Accordingly, my Master’s work used simulations to study hurricane formation, including ways this can happen near the equator. As I transitioned to my Ph.D. under Dr. Allison Wing, I looked more broadly at rain-producing systems in the tropics. Specifically, I was interested in how thunderstorms interact with their environment, and cluster together into more organized systems with extreme rainfall. This includes interactions between clouds, water vapor, atmospheric radiation, and circulations, processes which also influence hurricane intensity.

At Penn State, I have started to work more with climate models and atmospheric reanalyses, with a focus on hurricane structure. While we think of these as circular, symmetric storms, there are asymmetries that influence the impacts from extreme wind, rainfall, and storm surge. While climate models have improved substantially, they are unable to resolve many small-scale processes important to hurricanes. My work assesses how wind shear (change in wind with height) affects hurricane structure, and how well these interactions are captured in these relatively coarse datasets compared to observations and high-resolution modeling.

Jake presenting his poster at the American Meteorological Society’s Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology, held in New Orleans in May 2022.

I am passionate about teaching, mentorship, and community service, and aim to remain in academia as a professor. Along with my current role as the Chairperson of PoEMS, I participate in a Florida-based K-12 outreach initiative called “Scientist in Every Florida School”, and serve on our department’s Committee on Belonging. Outside of the lab, odds are you can catch me on the golf course, at any sports game I can get to, searching for nearby waterfalls, or playing with our cat, Nezzie.

Dr. Michelle Frazer, Geosciences, climate scientist

Advised by Dr. Lee Kump

I came to Penn State in September 2021 after completing my PhD in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences from Princeton University. While at Princeton, I developed proficiency in climate modeling while collaborating with NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. My research focus was clouds, particularly how changes in extratropical mixed-phase (liquid and ice) clouds with warming are represented in models. I also pursued a certificate in science policy, which opened opportunities for climate change communication, a highlight of which was attending a mass communication educators conference to present on how to communicate climate change to religious audiences.

In coming to Penn State, I pivoted in my research to paleoclimate modeling, my original motivation for entering the field of climate science. With my advisor Dr. Lee Kump (EMS college Dean) and collaborator Dr. Andy Ridgwell (at UC Riverside), I am exploring the ocean carbon cycle’s role in deglaciation. Using an intermediate complexity earth system model and proxy records of d13C and CaCO3, we are using data assimilation methods to reconstruct ocean circulation and carbon chemistry in the Last Glacial Maximum and Holocene periods. I am also passionate about teaching, with my first official experience being teaching physics at a maximum-security New Jersey prison while at Princeton. At Penn State, I taught METEO 5 this past summer to LEAP students and am teaching GEOSC 320 this spring. I hope to bring both the research and teaching experiences I have gained at Penn State to bear on expanding earth sciences learning and research at a liberal arts college. In my free time, I play violin at my church and compete in regional professional disc golf tournaments.

Greetings everyone and Happy New Year! We are starting a new series called Postdoc Spotlight where every month 2 postdocs will be featured. The intent is to get to know about everyone’s research and interests. This will be a great opportunity to learn more about our colleagues! If you would like to be featured send us an email.