About Me

Welcome! I am a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Water Resources Engineering Department. I am a member of the Hydroclimate Extremes Research Group and Hydroecology Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a member of the Voter Group at the University of Delaware. My advisors are Dr. Daniel B. Wright, Dr. Steve Lohiede II, and Dr. Carolyn B. Voter.

I am an atmospheric modeler, computational hydrologist, statistical hydrometeorologist, boundary layer meteorologist, accidental engineer, and most importantly a mentor and teacher. My work is focused on better understanding the links between the atmosphere and the land surface where we live in areas of both extreme heterogeneity and human interactions. I have extensive experience developing a new land surface parametrization suitable to answer questions relating to human responses to climate change in urban spaces within high resolution climate models. I further work with big data in the form of satellites, in-situ, airplane, and imagery data with physically informed methods and statistical/machine learning approaches to quantify the changing extremes in regions around the globe. The overarching goal of my research is to create find intradisciplinary answers to inherently intradisciplinary questions that face society now and in the future.

Outside of research, I am an active volunteer in both the American Meteorological Society and American Geophysical Union. I work to create spaces for those who have been historically excluded in sciences as my own identity of LGBTQIA+ and a first-generation college student gives me a unique context to advocate for others.

In the classroom, I create an active learning environment contextualized by the world around us, drawing examples from current events and using data that students can expect to see in their future careers. Evidence based teaching, projects-based learning, and a philosophy of creating environments where students are ‘safe-to-fail’ characterize my classrooms.

I received my B.S. in Physics and Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Nevada, Reno. My academic journey continued in the Water Resources Engineering Department at the University of California, Davis where I worked in the realm of land-atmosphere coupling in the Central Valley. In 2020, I joined the Water Resources Engineering Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where my dissertation work has been focused on scientifically informed urban climate at the city-scale in partnership with the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District. As part of this project, I developed a new land surface framework, Noah-MP for Heterogenous Urban Environments, which will soon be in the national release of Noah-MP everywhere. In 2025, I will transition to a NASA funded Land Cover – Land Use Change Postdoc position where we investigate urban greening around the United States, examining co-benefits and tradeoffs in the cities of Chicago, Baltimore, Houston, and Phoenix, as well as create partnerships in each of these communities!