Recent Grads - Department of Atmospheric Sciences

	Female	Male
BS	3	8
MS	2	0
PhD	1	1
Minor	0	2

In the 2017-2018 Academic year, 17 students graduated from the Atmospheric Sciences department. See the chart for more information:

Out of those who graduated in 2017-2018, 2 are going on for higher degrees, and several others are gainfully employed in the Atmospheric Sciences field.

Spotlight on Recent Graduates

Alex Lukinbeal

As a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Missoula, Montana, Alex provides forecasts and issues watches, advisories, and warnings for western Montana and north central Idaho. An essential function of his job is communicating potential impacts to decision makers. These include road district managers in the Montana and Idaho Department of Transportation and members of the fire weather community. One method of communication is biweekly YouTube fire weather and winter weather planning briefings designed to keep partners informed of potential impacts. Alex also completes routine terminal aerodrome forecasts (TAFS) and spot forecasts for wildfires and prescribed burns. Another important aspect of his job includes working with social media by publishing weather graphics designed to keep the public informed of possible weather impacts.

Sarah Bang

Sarah defended her dissertation entitled "Tropical Oceanic Thunderstorms and the Roles of Evolution, Organization, and Environmental Forcing in Their Electrification" in March 2018 under the advisement of Professor Ed Zipser, and graduated with a Ph.D. in May 2018. She was awarded a NASA Postdoctoral Program fellowship, and is currently working with Dr. Dan Cecil at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, working on the detection of severe hail using passive microwave radiometers onboard the GPM satellite.

Braden Cluster

Before graduating in May 2018, Braden spent time networking with previous University of Utah students and employers at atmospheric science conferences. These efforts lead to a position at the Utah Department of Environmental Quality as an Environmental Scientist. His job includes daily air quality forecasting (basically weather forecasting mixed with air chemistry), public outreach in the form of recorded phone messages and websites, calibrating and maintaining a variety of air quality instruments, and performing special research studies. Each state has a Department of Environmental Quality, and Atmospheric Science Bachelor's degrees are highly marketable for these jobs.

Kai Tawa

A few months after graduating with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Atmospheric Sciences in the Spring of 2018, Kai became a meteorologist with the Western Weather Group, a private company in Chico, California. He forecasts for a wide variety of locations and challenging forecast situations throughout the country while also getting to work on environmental instrumentation.