Senior Spotlight: Rachael Cross

Rachael Cross is a recent graduate of the School of Meteorology and was an AMS (American Meteorological Society) award winner in January. This was her second time attending AMS, but it was her first oral presentation. She earned an honorable mention for the presentation titled, When Uncertainty Is Certain: The Creation and Effects of Amiable Distrust between Emergency Managers and Forecast Information in the Southeastern United States.

Cross told us how she found her research topic,

“I have been working with Dr. LaDue for near two and a half years, so the research topic came from months of data analysis and guidance from my boss. Through that process, the topic of trust and distrust of forecast information was something that really stuck out to me in the data and really interested me. So, I decided to go down the rabbit hole and my portion of the project was born!”

After about six months Cross was ready to give her presentation in Phoenix,

“My favorite thing about presenting at AMS was getting to discuss my research with professionals in the field and get their feedback. Presenting at AMS was definitely a challenge for an introvert like myself, but the confidence and experience I gained was  invaluable and I can’t wait until I get to one day do it all over again!” 

Rachael is an extremely hardworking individual and a great part of the School of Meteorology. Congratulations to Rachael on successfully completing her Bachelor’s Degree in Meteorology and being a 2019 AMS award winner!