Weather Band Jamposium 2023

Steve Glazier is Lead Meteorologist at WeatherNation in Denver, Colorado. He has been a broadcast meteorologist for 15 years and serves as a board member of the AMS Weather Band. Steve has worked at various television stations in different cities, such as West Palm Beach, Florida, Burlington, Vermont, and Winchester, Virginia. Steve studied meteorology at Lyndon State College in Vermont and grew up in Connecticut. He has had a passion for the weather ever since he was seven years old.

Dr. Brooks is a research meteorologist and Senior Scientist at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Oklahoma. He studied physics and math at William Jewell College and has master's degrees in Atmospheric Sciences from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Illinois. He has focused on severe thunderstorms and their effects, and has been an author on IPCC Assessment Reports and a US Climate Change Science Program report. He has received multiple awards for his work, including the United States Department of Commerce's Silver Medal, the NOAA Administrator's Award, and the Distinguished Career Award. He is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society.

Marisa Ferger has worked with the Weather Communications Group at Penn State University for two decades, where she produces and forecasts for the show Weather World and teaches courses in weather communications. Hailing from a small coastal town in NY, she credits Hurricane Gloria with fostering her interest in the weather.

Kelly Butler is an early career meteorologist with the National Weather Service forecast office in Wichita Kansas. She is a native of Massachusetts and has enjoyed adapting to the wild weather of the Central Plains along with her dog, Maple. Kelly is a graduate of Northern Vermont University-Lyndon '14 (formerly Lyndon State College) and Ohio University '17

Steve Glazier is Lead Meteorologist at WeatherNation in Denver, Colorado. He has been a broadcast meteorologist for 15 years and serves as a board member of the AMS Weather Band. Steve has worked at various television stations in different cities, such as West Palm Beach, Florida, Burlington, Vermont, and Winchester, Virginia. Steve studied meteorology at Lyndon State College in Vermont and grew up in Connecticut. He has had a passion for the weather ever since he was seven years old.

Christine Wielgos is the Warning Coordination Meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Paducah KY. She received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Meteorology from Northern Illinois University. She has worked with the National Weather Service in Paducah KY since March 2000. As Warning Coordination Meteorologist, Christine's responsibilities include ensuring consistency and integrity of National Weather Service products and services, conducting safety and preparedness programs throughout the area, leading education and training courses for partners and the public, as well as occasionally working the forecast and warning operations desks.

Rick Smith is the Warning Coordination Meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Norman Forecast Office. He manages NWS Norman’s hazardous weather preparedness, outreach and decision support services activities for the office’s 56 county area of responsibility. Rick and the NWS Norman staff work closely with the media, emergency managers and other state, county, tribal and local government officials to ensure that communities in central and western Oklahoma and western north Texas are ready when hazardous weather threatens. Rick has been recognized for his work with several awards, including the American Meteorological Society’s Francis W. Reichelderfer Award in 2015, and the National Weather Association’s Individual Operational Achievement Award in 2013. Rick was also awarded with the Department of Commerce’s Bronze Medal Award in 2015 for his vision and application to social media to advance the goals for a Weather Ready Nation. Rick is a member of the National Weather Association, the American Meteorological Society and the Oklahoma Emergency Management Association. Rick has been a meteorologist with the National Weather Service since 1992, and worked at the forecast offices in Memphis, Tennessee and Tulsa, Oklahoma, as well as the NWS Southern Region Headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas before assuming his position in Norman in January of 2002.

Melissa Griffin currently serves as the Assistant State Climatologist at the South Carolina State Climatology Office. Melissa received a degree in meteorology from Florida State University and worked for the Florida Climate Center for fifteen years, serving as the Assistant State Climatologist of Florida for six years. She has also worked for a private STEM education company, the Kentucky Climate Center, and the Kentucky Mesonet. Melissa has published peer-reviewed research papers on climate impacts on the Southeastern United States, co-authored chapters of the book Florida Weather, and is involved in various weather-related outreach and education initiatives, including the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network.

Jeff Berardelli is WFLA News Channel 8’s Chief Meteorologist and Climate Specialist and leader of the Max Defender 8 Weather Team in Tampa, Florida. He has been a meteorologist for more than 25 years.

Jeff has also served as CBS News Meteorologist and Climate Specialist. In this capacity, he delivered weather for the network’s CBS Morning show, worked as a climate correspondent traveling the country reporting on environmental stories and provided scientific analysis for various platforms.

Jeff has been obsessed with weather all the way since the age of 3. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Atmospheric Sciences from Cornell University in the 1990s. Recently, after witnessing the recent spike in extreme weather, he went back to school to study Climate, earning a master’s degree in Climate and Society from Columbia University. He feels, as the climate continues to change, understanding and communicating the impact on extreme weather and society is an integral part of being a TV meteorologist today.

Daniel Gilford is a meteorologist and atmospheric scientist with a Ph.D. from MIT, focusing on climate variability and its effect on coastal communities. He is interested in using climate science for an equitable and resilient future. After a B.S. in Meteorology from Florida State University and his Ph.D. from MIT, he did a postdoc at Rutgers studying the influence of climate change on sea level rise. Currently, he works as a Climate Scientist at Climate Central, supporting teams studying climate and sea level. In his free time, he enjoys comics, coffee, board games, and community involvement.

Jamie Rhome is the Acting Director of NOAA’s National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami, a role he has filled since June 2022. Previous to his appointment as Acting Director, Mr. Rhome was the NHC Deputy Director. Mr. Rhome received both his Bachelor of Science degree and Master of Science degree in meteorology from North Carolina State University (1999, 2002). He joined the National Hurricane Center in 1999 as a marine forecaster in the Tropical Analysis and Forecast Branch. He became a hurricane specialist in 2006 and was selected to lead NHC’s Storm Surge program in 2008. He was also selected for a temporary assignment to the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy in 2008/2009 where he served as a scientific policy analyst within the Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. As a Storm Surge Specialist and the Team Lead, he served as a subject matter expert on storm surge and coastal inundation for the National Weather Service’s hurricane program. .

Kim Klockow McClain is a social science researcher at the NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory, and she leads the CIWRO/NSSL Behavioral Insights Unit. Her research focuses on informed decision-making in weather and climate contexts, including issues in the communication of forecast uncertainty. She is also actively involved in policy for social science within NOAA, and spent several years working at NOAA HQ after completing an AMS/UCAR Congressional Science Fellowship in the U.S. Senate. Kim received her PhD in Geography and MS in Professional Meteorology from the University of Oklahoma, and BS degrees in both Economics and Synoptic Meteorology from Purdue University.

Dr. Kim Wood is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geosciences at Mississippi State University specializing in tropical meteorology. She obtained her Ph.D. in atmospheric science from the University of Arizona in 2012. She has participated in two field campaigns (Tropical Cyclone Structure-2008 and Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes in 2010) as well as two international workshops (International Workshop on Extratropical Transition in 2012 and International Workshop on Tropical Cyclones in 2014). Wood has published and presented on research that includes land impacts of tropical cyclones in the eastern North Pacific basin, extratropical transition of tropical cyclones, satellite-derived estimates of tropical cyclone genesis and intensity, and quantification of environmental factors that affect tropical cyclone structure and intensity. She is currently pursuing research related to tropical climatology, land impacts of tropical cyclones, and tropical-extratropical interaction events.

Douglas Hilderbrand is the National Weather Service Preparedness and Resilience Program lead, leading the Weather-Ready Nation Ambassadors, StormReady, and SKYWARN programs. He is also the AMS Chair of the Weather Band Committee, a member of the newly established Committee on Spirituality, Multifaith Outreach, and Science, and a former commissioner of the Weather, Water, and Climate Enterprise Commission. With 20 years of experience in the National Weather Service, Hilderbrand has held various roles including as a communications specialist, a policy advisor, and a research and innovation lead. He has brought together organizations to achieve success and reduce lightning deaths, and added committees and drafted AMS Statements during his time as an AMS commissioner. Hilderbrand holds a BA in geology from Bucknell University, a Master's in geology from University of South Florida, and a Master's in meteorology from North Carolina State University.

Dr. Cory Demko has earned a B.S in Meteorology from Millersville University of Pennsylvania and M.Sc and Ph.D in Atmospheric Science from the University of Wyoming studying the stable and convective boundary layer. Dr. Demko spent 5 years in the Atmospheric Transport and Dispersion modeling community doing force protection and hazard assessments for the DoD. He then transitioned into the Data Science community utilizing his numerical modeling background. Dr. Demko currently works with Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning techniques and is an adjunct faculty member at Northern Virginia Community College.

Matt Vaughan is an Assistant Professor at St. Cloud State University. He earned a B.S. in Applied Meteorology at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University as well as a M.S. and a Ph.D from the University at Albany. During graduate school, Matt worked with NWS forecasters and SPC severe convection outlook data to identify regimes with poor predictive skill over the northeast U.S. He then moved into the numerical weather prediction and winter weather fields for his later years at university. Matt is interested in turbulence parameterization schemes and how variability in subgrid-scale parameterizations impacts synoptic-scale processes, particularly during cool-season precipitation events.

Dr. Halverson has traveled the world's tropical latitudes to better understand how hurricanes and other severe storms develop and intensify. He conducted meteorological research in Brazil, Australia, the South China Sea, Costa Rica, the Marshall Islands, West Africa and various locations in the Caribbean. In 2001, he helped pioneer a new aircraft-based, upper atmospheric measuring system to take direct measurements in the eye of intensifying hurricanes from the extreme high altitudes flown by U.S. spy planes. In 2005 and 2006, he managed NASA field programs to investigate hurricanes using satellites and high-altitude research aircraft. He served as Mission Scientist on a five-year NASA mission to study hurricanes using remotely piloted aircraft.

Halverson is currently Professor of Geography and Environmental Systems and Associate Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). Dr. Halverson has authored more than 40 professional papers. He is a forecaster, writer and the Severe Storms Expert for The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang. He also serves as an editor, columnist and feature writer for Weatherwise Magazine. He is presently working with scientists at NOAA’s Ocean Prediction Center to study severe cyclonic storms in the North Atlantic.

Jamie Enderlen's full time job is the Chicago, IL Center Weather Service Unit's Meteorologist-in-Charge where she enjoys helping air traffic controllers keep aircraft and passengers safe, but she's currently on a temporary detail to the NWS' Integrated Decision Support Services Branch helping create Decision Support Service policy, tools, and training. Jamie's interest in weather and passion for supporting partners started as a child. Her job in her family's landscaping and snow plowing business was to relay TV weather forecasts and eventually provide her own. Jamie's other passions are her two pitbull rescue dogs and riding her ex-racehorse.