Taylor Faires wins 1st place poster award in the conference of Environmental Information Processing Technologies

Taylor Faires, an undergraduate student in the School of Meteorology, gave a poster presentation at the 2017 AMS (American Meteorological Society) Annual Meeting that was selected 1st place in the Conference Student Competition of the Environmental Information Processing Technologies (EIPT).

Faires’s Poster was titled “Developing a Tornado Debris Signature Algorithm.”

I am incredibly proud of this achievement!

This was Faires first time to attend AMS. This was also her first time presenting a poster at AMS.

“Initially, I was intimidated to present, but during the presentation, I felt confident in the work that I had done. Presenting the poster was a valuable experience and I am thankful for the opportunity from CIMMS.”

Faires says her work with CIMMS (Find out more about OU CIMMS here: CIMMS) as the reason for pursuing her topic of research.  

As a CIMMS student research assistant I was assigned to this research topic by my boss Kiel Ortega. He helped guide me through the research process and I ended up really enjoying the subject. The topic of debris signatures is incredibly fascinating to me, and the development of a tornado debris signature algorithm would be a valuable asset to the meteorological community.

Faires is very interested in aviation and hopes to pursue a minor in that topic. 

I am most interested in research investigating meteorological phenomena that have direct effects on aviation; such as microbursts, downslope wind storms, and turbulence within the atmosphere.”

Faires is part of OU CIMMS, which always helps and assists her work. Her coauthors were Bria Hieatt, Kiel Ortega, and Darrel Kingfield.

“I could not have accomplished this without co-presenter Bria Hieatt who stood by my side and assisted throughout the duration of poster presentation! She truly did a fantastic job presenting as well and contributed greatly to the project. Kiel Ortega and Darrel Kingfield are the main contributors to the research behind the project and offered invaluable advice for the poster.”

Taylor Faires and Bria Hieatt presenting their award winning poster at AMS 2017.

Bria Hieatt, who was also there to present at AMS, had this to say about the award.

“As a first time AMS attendee and co-presenter, it is a tremendous honor to be acknowledged by other scientists and meteorologists. The award is a great compliment to the work everyone conducted, especially Taylor for pulling all of the research together and making it look outstanding on the poster. I have Kiel Ortega and Darrel Kingfield to thank for giving Taylor and I this awesome research opportunity. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for future research and applications of TDS.”

This year, The AMS Annual Meeting was held in Seattle, WA. The west coast town saw many first-time visitors for the conference, including Faires.

This was my first time visiting Seattle and it did not disappoint. The food was amazing and the views were absolutely breathtaking. The funnest thing I did in Seattle was go up in the Space Needle with my coworkers and friends. It was freezing cold outside, but we spent nearly an hour up there taking ridiculously goofy pictures and enjoying the views.

Faires has always been interested in Meteorology since a young age.

I am pursuing a bachelor’s degree in meteorology with minors in both mathematics and aviation management. I’ve had an unexplainable excitement for weather ever since I was young. This excitement eventually turned into passion and I knew that I wanted to make a career doing something I loved and enjoyed. So I decided to attend the University of Oklahoma, one of the best schools in the nation for meteorology, and work towards a bachelor’s degree. Along the way I also found a passion for aviation and decided to add a minor in aviation management and am now set to graduate December of 2017. I hope to one day be able to combine my interests of both meteorology and weather into a successful career.”

Faires advice to students is to not give up, even if it seems like you’ve lost your curiosity.

As undergraduate students, it can be easy to lose the curiosity that drove us to study meteorology in the first place. I would like to encourage other students to grow in their curiosity and passion for the weather throughout the undergraduate experience. Let nothing discourage you and never give up. 

Congratulations Taylor! The School is so proud of you!