I joined MEAS at NC State in 2005, after serving 3 years on the faculty at the University of Nebraska. I have participated in a variety of scientific and coordination roles for field projects such as VORTEX2, PECAN, and VORTEX-Southeast, and recently served as an editor for the AMS’s Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences. My teaching interests and experience include dynamic meteorology, the dynamics of clouds and storms, mesoscale meteorology, and numerical atmospheric modeling.
My group's current research focuses on the dynamics of convective storms, including tornadic supercells and mesoscale convective systems (MCSs). Such storms and systems have great impact upon our society owing to the hazardous weather and vital precipitation that they produce. To advance our understanding of them, we combine numerical simulations, conventional observations, and high-resolution data from field campaigns. Some questions that students in our group are addressing include: the impacts of low-level wind and thermodynamic profiles upon supercells and tornadogenesis; the low-level kinematics and dynamics of elevated convection; the climatology of convective storms in the eastern U.S. (especially in low-CAPE conditions); and, storms' sensitivities and interactions in the high-shear regime that spans the MCS-supercellular spectrum.