About

My name is Kyle Wodzicki and I am a Ph.D. student at Texas A&M University in the department of Atmospheric Sciences. If someone told me I would be working toward a Ph.D. in any field when I was in high school, I never would have believed them. But it is true that hard work, perseverance, and some passion really do pay off.

I cannot remember a definitive moment that sparked my interest in weather, but I do know the movie Twister played a part. In elementary school I would 'forecast' on the playground and read as much as I could, and could understand, about tornadoes.

As I grew up I become more interested in how things work. Computers, cars, audio recording, and all kinds of electronics fascinated me. Of course, my biggest fascination was with weather; how clouds form, how storms move, where does weather start. These were just some of my questions. When I made it to college, (State University of New York at Oswego), I found the answers to a lot of my questions, which led to more questions. I also discovered some new interests, with one of those interests being computer programing.

While at Oswego I was also afforded the opportunity to go storm chasing in the Great Plains and to travel abroad as part of a summer research program. My experience storm chasing was unforgettable and the experience I gained as a meteorologist is invaluable. While chasing, my classmates and I were split into three teams; forecasting, logistics, and public outreach. This gave us all the opportunity to not only forecast and pick a target location for our chases each day, but also helped us to coordinate so many people (i.e., hotels, food, refueling, etc.) and call in tornado sightings the the National Weather Service. In total our group saw 7 tornadoes (I think) and we got some really great Photos.

My trip abroad took me to Federal University of Alagoas in Maceió, Brazil where I was advised by Humberto Barbosa. I spent two months in Brazil and performed research on a topic of my choosing. While performing some labs created by Humberto to familiarize me with the McIDAS V software I would be using for my research, I became quite interested in identifying volcanic ash in satellite imagery; the topic of one of the labs. I decided to research this topic more and ended up studying the 2011 eruption of the Puyehue-Cordón Caulle volcano in Chile using MODIS AQUA satellite imagery and the HYSPLIT model. This project was a great learning experience for independent research and peaked my interest in satellite remote sensing, which is a big part of my research as a graduate student.

After graduating from SUNY Oswego in 2013, I was offered a Graduate Research Assistant position at Texas A&M University and have been here ever since. I completed my Master's Degree in December 2015 under the advisement of Dr. Anita D. Rapp and I am currently working on my Ph.D. under he as well. When I finish my Ph.D. I hope to obtain a post doctoral position where I can continue to do research and get as much experience teaching as possible so that I may ultimately become a professor.

When I am not doing research you can usually find me either playing my drum set, recoding music in my 'home studio', or writing python programs to maintain a small local media server I have in my house.