The Kent State Department of Geography has multiple faculty and graduate students doing research in weather and climate.
Jason Senkbeil utilized the SSC in his dissertation as part of his assessment of irrigation's influences on precipitation in the Great Plains. He also utilized the SSC in evaluating tree-ring growth in Alabama as a follow up to his master's thesis work. Tom Ballinger has used the SSC as well as other circulation pattern catalogues to assess Arctic sea ice variability and its relationship with North American climate. Cameron Lee used future climate model data in his thesis to predict circulation patterns that are associated with tornadic outbreaks, and has also developed a gridded weather-type classification system similar in philosophy to the SSC. Three current advisees of mine are using self-organizing maps in their research. Rafiq Islam is using SOMs to analyze the variability in the South Asian Monsoon. Tyler Smith and Ryan Adams are using SOMs of atmospheric patterns across eastern North America to analyze cold air outbreaks, and bomb cyclones, respectively.
Scott Sheridan
ssherid1@kent.edu
Research interests: synoptic climatology, climate change, and bioclimatology
Thomas Schmidlin
tschmidl@kent.edu
Research interests: climatology, severe weather, and natural hazards
Cameron Lee
cclee@kent.edu
Research interests: applied climatology
Becky Parylak
rbrown80@kent.edu
Research interests: historical precipitation trends, climate change, El Nino Southern Oscillation, severe weather, natural hazards, and biogeography