I am a Research Scientist at the OU Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis and the Cooperative Institute for Severe and High-Impact Weather Research and Operations within the Storm Prediction Center. 

Growing up near the Twin Cities, MN, I experienced nearly every type of weather during my grade school years. This fascination with the different types of weather and a little bit of competitive spirit (a classmate once told me that girls couldn’t do science, so naturally I had to prove him wrong) eventually lead me to pursue a degree in meteorology.

I earned my bachelor’s degree from Iowa State University in 2015 and then moved to Norman, where I earned my master’s degree in meteorology at the University of Oklahoma in 2017 and my Ph.D. in 2020. My work focuses on decision making and risk communication during extreme weather events. I spend most of my time each spring participating in the Hazardous Weather Testbed, where I work with forecasters, emergency managers, and broadcast meteorologists to create and test innovative methods of forecasting and communicating hazardous weather information.

Within the OU Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis, we field and analyze surveys that aim to understand how the public receives, understands, and responds to severe weather products, and how that process may change as the forecast system continues to evolve.