Host a CIRES speaker

The Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) works to understand the dynamic Earth system, including people’s relationship with the planet. As an institute at the University of Colorado Boulder, we have partnered with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) since 1967.

The CIRES Science Pathways program invites Colorado institutions to host a CIRES member for a science and career talk at their location free of cost, with the overall goals of building connections, lowering barriers to work at CIRES, and expanding the reach of CIRES’ science.

Selections will be made based on the speaker’s availability. Each visit will include a “flash talk” on the researcher’s science, a connection to the CIRES mission, and a career story that illustrates the researcher’s unique path to their current position. A question and answer session could be included to promote discussion with students about pursuing an environmental science career.
 

Alex Baron

Air Quality and Atmospheric Chemistry, Observational Tools and Methods, Climate - Weather balloon can be used to access the remote and harsh conditions of the stratosphere. There, the particles aloft in this atmospheric layer can stay elongated periods of time and impact the climate. Balloon-borne scientific instruments can asses changes in size, number and composition of these particle, deepening our understanding of stratospheric processes and narrowing down uncertainties for climate projections. 

Grace Bennett-Pierre

Environmental Education, Observational Tools and Methods, Climate - How do people learn about climate systems from a unique, 3-D spherical visualization platform? NOAA’s Science On the Sphere (SOS) is a 6-foot sphere with four external projectors that display visualizations of global datasets - surface temperature, migration paths of turtles, clouds over the Earth - on its surface. We are studying how people learn from still versus animated visualizations when learning about Earth's Energy Budget, and how their spatial skills influence that experience.

Kari Bowen

Weather and Climate - My journey’s been anything but conventional - and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I kicked things off at a community college, eventually landing at a four-year university as an atmospheric science major. From there, I transitioned from a weather intelligence operator in the Air Force to a Meteorologist with the National Weather Service, then advanced to Director of Intelligence, and now I’m working as a Program Manager at a major earth science research organization. Along the way, I squeezed in an online Master’s degree and raised a few amazing kids. It’s been a whirlwind—and honestly, a pretty awesome one. I am looking forward to discussing unconventional paths in earth science and how everyone's river is unique.

Cassie Buhler

Biodiversity Conservation / Environmental Data Science - In the face of biodiversity loss, decision-support software allows scientists and policymakers to model, monitor, and analyze ecological data, facilitating more informed and timely decisions for conservation and restoration efforts. This talk will discuss how we leverage environmental data science and open data practices to support conservation decision-making. 

John Cassano

Changes in Polar Regions, Observational Tools and Methods, Weather - I'd be happy to talk about my path to becoming a scientist and professor from growing up in a blue-collar family and being the first member of my family to attend college. I'd also like to talk about my experience doing polar fieldwork (14 trips to Antarctica and six trips to the Arctic, including three months on the MOSAiC expedition). I have lots of fun photos, and a few videos, I can share that give a sense of what living and working in remote polar locations is like.

Audrey Gaudel

Air Quality and Atmospheric Chemistry - The basic questions I am trying to answer is "Are there neighborhoods in New York City, Denver, Baltimore to name a few urban areas in the US, where people breathe more ozone, fine particulate matter or nitrogen dioxide, known to be dangerous for health, than other neighborhoods? How? Why? For how long?". To answer these questions, I am using instruments deployed to measure air pollution at "nose" level and I am using model output to understand the sources and the processes behind such air pollution and its detected inequity. I am working towards engaging with local marginalized communities to co-produce useful knowledge for air (e)quality. 

Khosro Ghobadi-Far

Remote Sensing of Freshwater Resources: Climate change has profound effects on freshwater resources, with rising temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, and more frequent extreme weather events such as floods and droughts. Sustainable management of freshwater resources under climate change requires a versatile and effective monitoring system. Remote sensing techniques can help with such a monitoring system of freshwater resources such as surface water, snowpack, and groundwater. In this presentation, I will talk about some new ideas and developments in remote sensing of water resources. 

I am also excited about sharing my journey from one of the most ancient cities in the world to Boulder, Colorado, and through three continents, with students. 

Kai Kopecky

Observational Tools and Methods, Natural Hazards, Water, Marine ecology - Many ecosystems have developed the capacity to recover from disturbance events, like storms or fires, but climate change is introducing new disturbance types that ecosystems may not be able to recover from. Coral reefs, in particular, can readily recover from tropical storm damage, but it is less clear if they are resilient to new forms of disturbance, like coral bleaching. Using cutting edge techniques in remote sensing and AI, I show that coral bleaching significantly compromises the ability of coral reefs to recover, but also that there are actions we can take to increase this ability. 

Jianhao Zhang

Clouds and Climate, Observational Tools and Methods, Weather - The depiction of clouds has fascinated mankind for millennia by their complex, ephemeral shapes and subtle variations in color and texture with lighting. Besides their natural beauty, clouds are a central component of the Earth’s hydrological cycle and energy budget. They regulate how energy enters and leaves the earth by reflecting incoming sunlight (a cooling effect) and trapping outgoing terrestrial radiation (a warming effect). I will talk about how scientists have been using satellite, physics-based computer models, and Artificial Intelligence to advance our understanding of how clouds contribute to and are influenced by the changing climate.