Prospective students interested in pursuing undergraduate, graduate (M.S. or Ph.D.), or postdoctoral research are encouraged to contact Christina Patricola at cmp28@iastate.edu.
Research Areas:
- climate variability and change
- climate dynamics
- tropical cyclones
- extreme weather/climate events
- atmosphere-ocean interactions
- high-resolution climate modeling
- paleoclimate
Current group members
Chris Patricola - Professor and Principal Investigator
I am an Associate Professor at Iowa State University and an Affiliate at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. I received my PhD in Atmospheric Science from Cornell University. My research focuses on variability and change in extreme weather events on future to paleo timescales. I enjoy designing and running high-resolution climate model experiments to understand how large-scale drivers and local-scale feedbacks in the Earth System influence extreme weather, especially tropical cyclones.
Dakota Forbis - PhD student
Dakota is a graduate student at Iowa State University investigating future changes in tropical cyclone characteristics using convection-permitting regional climate model simulations.
Tyler Mercurio - MS student
Tyler is a graduate student at Iowa State University investigating future changes in historically-impactful extreme precipitation events over the Midwest using regional climate models.
Nathan Erickson - MS student
Nathan is a graduate student at Iowa State University investigating future changes in convective storms using regional climate models and machine learning.
Ronald Kouski - concurrent BS/MS student
Ron is a concurrent MS/BS Meteorology Student at Iowa State University investigating the influence of African Easterly waves on tropical cyclone tracks and landfall using large-ensemble regional climate model simulations.
Derrick Danso - postdoctoral researcher
I am a postdoctoral researcher at Iowa State University under the supervision of Christina Patricola. I received my Ph.D. in Ocean, Atmosphere, and Hydrological Sciences from the Université Grenoble Alpes, France. My research focuses on understanding how tropical disturbances, specifically the African Easterly Waves, control the intensity and variability of tropical cyclones using high-resolution climate models.
Ana Sena - postdoctoral researcher
I am a postdoctoral researcher working at Iowa State University. I received my PhD in Earth System Science at University of California Irvine. My research focuses on understanding the mechanisms by which climate change may affect the global distribution of tropical cyclones, by performing experiments in global climate models.
Emily Bercos-Hickey - postdoctoral researcher
I am a postdoctoral researcher working at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. My research interests include working with large sets of global and regional climate model data to examine how climate change will affect the complex meteorology over North Africa, specifically focusing on African easterly waves, as well as severe storms over the United States. Berkeley Lab profile: https://eesa.lbl.gov/profiles/emily-bercos-hickey/
Undergraduate researchers
- Michael Jones
- First-Year Honors Program (Spring 2024)
- Madeline Medvec
- Undergraduate researcher (Spring 2024)
- Austyn Hartwig
- Meteorology Senior Thesis (2024)
- Jacob Olson
- Meteorology Senior Thesis (2024)
- Michael Ruth
- Meteorology Senior Thesis (2024)
Group photos
Alumni
Teryn Mueller
Teryn was a concurrent MS/BS Meteorology Student at Iowa State University and earned his MS in May 2023. This thesis is on "The Influence of ENSO Diversity on Future Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Activity." Teryn is now an Exposure Management Analyst at Assurant.
Huanping Huang
Huanping is now an Assistant Professor at Louisiana State University: https://www.lsu.edu/ga/people/faculty/huanping-huang.php
Huanping was a postdoctoral fellow in the Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, under the supervision of Christina M. Patricola and William D. Collins. He received his PhD in Earth Sciences from Dartmouth College. Huanping's research focused on the detection and attribution of hydroclimate extremes, as well as the physical mechanisms through which natural variability and anthropogenic forcing alter hydroclimate extremes.
Previous undergraduate researchers
- Kyle Curry
- Meteorology Senior Thesis (2023)
- Grace Hansen
- Meteorology Senior Thesis (2023)
- First-Year Honors Program (Spring 2021)
- Jonathan Wolf-Wainggai
- Meteorology Senior Thesis (2023)
- Lexie Merley (currently Meteorologist at Dakota News Now)
- Meteorology Senior Thesis (2022)
- Delenn Palmer
- Meteorology Senior Thesis (2022)
- Nathan Erickson
- LAS Dean's High Impact Award (Spring 2022)
- Meteorology Senior Thesis (2021)
- Juan Pablo Mangual
- LAS Dean's High Impact Award (Spring 2022)
- Meteorology Senior Thesis (2021)
- Daniel Cassidy (currently Meteorologist at KWWL)
- Undergraduate researcher (Spring 2022)
- Meteorology Senior Thesis (2021)
- Jared Schadler (currently at NOAA Aviation Weather Center)
- Undergraduate researcher (Summer 2021)
- Allysa Dallman (currently graduate student at UT Austin)
- LAS Dean's High Impact Award (Spring 2021)
- Meteorology Senior Thesis (Fall 2020)
- Flor Vanessa Maciel (currently graduate student at UCLA)
- Berkeley Lab Undergraduate Research program, LBNL (Summer 2020)
updated 3/13/2024