Teaching and Education

Teaching Philosophy

I typically teach three courses per year in my areas of expertise, including our two-semester core synoptic meteorology sequence, electives in tropical and mesoscale meteorology, and a graduate-level numerical weather prediction course. I also teach our program’s freshman-level introductory seminar course.

As a teacher, I strive to facilitate the development of students’ ability to critically evaluate ideas presented before them and to creatively apply existing knowledge to generate understanding. I meticulously organize my courses so that new concepts directly scaffold on to previous material and clearly connect to the course’s learning objectives.

Although I adapt my teaching methods to each student cohort, I strongly believe in introducing key physical concepts using a variety of methods and engaging students through activities that apply these concepts to real-world situations. To that end, I use frequent low-stakes assessments to help organize students’ learning and provide them with constant feedback on their learning progress. I use application activities to give students hands-on experience in seeing how theoretical or foundational concepts manifest in the real world – whether the atmosphere, society, or both.

Course Materials

My teaching materials are generally hosted on UWM’s Canvas learning management system. Although Canvas access is limited to UWM students, faculty, and staff, I am happy to share the materials (particularly notes and examples, but also assignments and exams on a limited basis) that I have prepared for my courses. While I expect to populate this site with the latest version of these materials in 2023, in the interim please contact me if you are interested in learning more about what is available.

Other Resources

I also believe in mentoring, including research supervision, student advising, and outreach, as perhaps a teacher’s most-important duty. I strive to assist students in identifying opportunities to further their skills outside of the traditional classroom environment. To that end, I have put together several webpages providing information regarding undergraduate and graduate scholarships, student research opportunities, applying to graduate school, and post-doctoral fellowships. Links to these resources may be found below. Please feel free to share these resources and contact me with any corrections and/or additions to each list. Please note that I only accept submissions that are specific to the atmospheric and related sciences and are available to students beyond a single institution.

Student Research Internships | Undergraduate Scholarships
Graduate Fellowships and Post-Docs | Applying to Graduate School