Below is a transcript of our conversation with Jason Keeler, Associate Professor of Meteorology in CMU’s Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
David Nicholas:
I'm David Nicholas, and this is Central Focus, a weekly look at research activity and innovative work from Central Michigan University students and faculty.
Maybe when you were a kid, you liked to sit on the porch during heavy weather to watch Mother Nature's Big Storm, the big show! At CMU, STORM stands for Student Training for Observational Research in Meteorology. Each August, the program takes students to CMU's Biological Station on Beaver Island.
Jason Keeler is an associate professor in CMU's Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. He told me that the popular program has developed some very specific features that set it apart from similar programs at other colleges and universities…
Jason Keeler:
For STORM, we've absolutely grown from experiences that other programs have, but we very deliberately structured this so that it was very much unique. And so really the primary elements there are, as we mentioned, it's solely for students who've just completed their first year at university. We pay the students so they don't have to choose between, you know, summer employment and their career benefit. It is not based on grades. So, we select them based on factors that are not academic in nature. and that we put them in an environment where it's meant to be learning as opposed to them working on a high-pressure campaign. And so, putting together those elements, STORM is the only program of this nature.
DN:
As tech continues to change, and it always seems like it's a quicker and quicker pace as we go, do the instruments that they work with, are these still ones that we're accustomed to from the past, or are those been or gone through modifications, and are they learning on new types of equipment now that we have just come so far in maybe the last four, 5, 10 years?
JK:
Well, it's really a blend of both of those. Certainly, some tools that have been around maybe since the 90s in terms of field research. We have at CMU what's called our mobile Mesonet, and that's that instrumented SUV that I had mentioned. And so that has been around since the 90s, but this version that we're using is, updated for in the, say, the 2010s is its design. We're using uncrewed aircraft or drones, and that's certainly a more modern tool that they're working with. But they're also working with weather balloons or radiosondes, and so more traditional.
DN:
So, we still depend on those in a lot of ways, yeah…
It's built up to, as I understand it, around 18 students now. Is this something that has the potential to grow or given the range of things, do you have to kind of contain and keep a little bit of a lid on this?
JK:
We found that size works well. And so, we have 4 faculty members who are involved with that group of students. Thirteen of those are from CMU, and then we have five who join us from the University of Northern Colorado, along with one of their professors. And so, we find that size allows the students to have more time to make connections with their own classmates, make connections with students from another university, and faculty from other universities.
DN:
And I'm glad you brought that up because I was going to ask, what about the partnership with the University of Northern Colorado? How did that come to be developed and put in as part of this?
JK:
So, there's the three principal investigators on this grant are myself, Dr. Daria Kluver from CMU and Dr. Wendy Flynn from the University of Northern Colorado. And Wendy and I know each other from grad school for almost 20 years, and Daria and Wendy actually did their Bachelor's together. So, these are long-lasting friendships and who, we've all gone on to become university professors who value these immersive experiences with our students. And so, I think that also has the benefit of this coming across as authentic to our students, because these are real friendships and real people who were important to us and our community when we were students.
DN:
Jason Keeler, thanks so much for stopping by again. Good to see you again and continued good success with the students that are involved in both, and we appreciate the time today.
JK:
Thank you very much.
