Teaching

As a scientist, I am enthusiastic about weather and climate education for the next generation. A summary of the recent and past courses I've taught, workshops I have organized, and teaching resources I have created are in the page below.

Recent Courses

AOS 100: Weather & Climate (3 credits)

Semester: Fall

Last Offered: 2024 | Upcoming: 2025

Nature and variability of wind, temperature, cloud and precipitation. Storm system, fronts, thunderstorms, tornadoes and their prediction. Air composition and pollution. Global winds, seasonal changes, climate and climatic change.

AOS 201: Explorations of Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences (3 credits)

Semester: Spring

Last Offered: 2024 | Upcoming: 2026

Spring 2024 Topics: Explore the atmospheric and oceanic sciences via a focus on high-impact weather and climate events. This course will examine high-impact events recognized as U.S. billion-dollar weather and climate disasters. In addition to uncovering the scientific principles needed to analyze data and observations of high-impact weather and climate events, the class will also consider the career sectors and opportunities related to mitigating the impacts from these events.

AOS 311: Dynamics of the Atmosphere and Ocean II (3 credits)

Semester: Spring

Last Offered: 2025

Intermediate theory of fluid motions for atmosphere and ocean with an emphasis on large-scale applications and basic theory for several geophysical wave types. The course includes concepts of balanced flows, frictional flow, vorticity concepts, Rossby waves, shallow water waves, and quasi-geostrophic theory.

AOS 801: Topics in Theoretical Meteorology (3 credits)

Semester: Fall

Last Offered: 2023

Fall 2023 Topic: Dynamics and Predictability of Extratropical Winter Extremes. The course will provide an overview of the large-scale drivers and processes that impact the dynamics and predictability of the extratropical winter atmosphere. We will consider phenomena that impact the extra-tropics and high latitudes, including several modes of variability and weather regimes, we’ll explore the implications of troposphere-stratosphere coupling on both weather and seasonal timescales, and we’ll consider the predictability of high-impact events in the context of the background state.

Classroom Materials and Pedagogical Efforts

Classroom games: As a way to keep up with concepts from class, I sometimes add games. I created a 'fortune teller' game applied in a new way to quiz yourself on class topics. You can find the template as a PDF or a PPTX you can edit.

Animations: Often, students find it hard to conceptually visualize and understand some foundational topics. Atmospheric thickness for example. To aid in an explanation, I create animated gifs, this one for atmospheric thickness.

Applications: Visualizing and exploring the relationships with real-world data is a key part of applying the math and physics to explain how the atmosphere works. My classes use python notebooks to examine key course concepts.

Online Resources: As part of my courses, I created a series of YouTube videos that walk students through complicated concepts with visualizations, foundations in math, and connections to other key topics from our coursework.

Mind the Gap Workshops

In many meteorology and atmospheric science programs, students interested in private sector careers experience a gap between the curricular examples and pedagogical tools they see, and the skills/background needed for employment. These workshop facilitated collaboration between academia and the private sector to define the gap, produce recommendations, develop pedagogical modules, tools, and datasets to promote future innovations within the weather, water, and climate enterprise.

2019 NSF – Mind the Gap Workshop

2022 NSF – Second Mind the Gap Workshop

Courses at the University at Albany, SUNY

ATM 100: The Atmosphere (3 credits)

Non-technical survey of the atmosphere; the physical environment of society and its historical development; intentional and unintentional modifications of the environment; cloud types and structure; severe storms; weather forecasting; air pollution; major wind and weather systems.

ATM 110: Weather and Climate Issues for the 21st Century (3 credits)

Examine the physics that explains weather and climate variability as well as climate change. Topics of discussion will include the nature of weather systems (e.g., fronts and cyclones, hurricanes, tornadoes and thunderstorms, lightning, rain processes, etc.), observations and theory of climate variability and change (including introduction to the climate system, water and energy cycles, the greenhouse effect and anthropogenic climate change) as well as key environmental issues (e.g., pollution, ozone hole, etc.). The science will inform classroom discussions and projects focused on 21st century issues related to weather and climate.

ATM 210: Atmospheric Structure, Thermodynamics, and Circulation (3 credits)

Technical survey of the atmosphere with application of elementary physical and mathematical concepts to the horizontal and vertical structure of the atmosphere; planetary, regional and local circulations; weather systems; atmospheric radiation; precipitation physics and thermodynamics.

ATM 317: Dynamic Meteorology II (3 credits)

Application of the governing equations to describe and understand synoptic to planetary scale phenomena, including vertical motion, jet streaks, and the frontal cyclone; introduction to the concepts of vorticity and potential vorticity.

ATM 525: Troposphere-Stratosphere Interactions (3 credits)

An introduction to the structure, composition, dynamics, chemistry and radiational properties of the stratosphere. An analysis of two-way interaction between the troposphere and stratosphere in the tropics, extra-tropics and high latitudes and the implications of troposphere-stratosphere interactions on timescales at the weather-climate interface.

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