News and Events

MEMS was founded in 2019 to promote diversity within the College of Earth and Mineral Science by Bryttani Wooten, then an undergraduate student in meteorology and atmospheric science. Wooten graduated in 2021 and is now a doctoral student in geography at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

WPSU has aired a fascinating special about Weather World at Penn State over their 40 years of production.

Kenneth Davis, professor of atmospheric and climate science at Penn State, will lead a team of 23 investigators from 13 research institutions in a new field campaign supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to study surface-atmosphere interactions around Baltimore, Maryland, to see how they influence the city’s climate. The new campaign, called the Coast-Urban-Rural Atmospheric Gradient Experiment (CoURAGE), is expected to start in October 2024 and run through September 2025.

Back when she was in high school, Katelyn Bahr attended Advanced Weather Camp at Penn State, and said it had a big impact on her life. Now a Penn State grad, she has worked as a lead counselor at the camp for three years, working to inspire the next generation of future meteorologists.

“Attending that camp solidified my decision to attend Penn State for meteorology," Bahr said. "I am now graduated with a degree in meteorology and atmospheric science. The counselors I had in 2018 were really nice, and I knew I wanted to study with people like that in college and have the same passion for meteorology."

Aara'L Yarber wants to bridge a critical gap she sees in journalism — localized news tailored to Black communities. Through a National Science Foundation (NSF) internship this fall, the meteorology and atmospheric science doctoral candidate said she hopes to be able to do just that.  

Four Penn State students in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences — Bridget Reheard, left, Mallory Wickline, Jackie Kiska and Asha Spencer — were recently awarded the Ernest F. Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to advance their research ambitions.

Machine learning technology that can recognize human faces may also help to improve weather forecasts, according to a team of scientists. “The idea behind this work comes from Google’s FaceNet, but instead of comparing your picture to images of faces in a database, we are comparing weather to historical forecasts,” said Weiming Hu, a machine learning scientist at the University of San Diego and a former doctoral student at Penn State.

Melissa Gervais, assistant professor of meteorology and atmospheric science and co-hire in Penn State’s Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS), received a five-year $874,000 Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation to investigate the impact of sea ice loss on large-scale patterns of atmospheric variability and cold air outbreaks.

Martha Christino, a double major in meteorology and atmospheric science and civil engineering, was selected as the marshal for the college’s spring 2023 commencement. 

A Penn State-led interdisciplinary team of researchers across six institutions was awarded a $3.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to investigate the role that macrobiota, such as clams, salt marshes and seagrasses, play in carbon cycling in estuaries.