February 11, 2025

Celebrating Black History Month: Atmospheric science perspectives

Atmospheric Science Associate Professor Melissa Burt knows what it means to pave the way.

In fact, being a Black meteorologist means that there is a good chance you are the first to reach a given achievement said Alan Sealls, President-elect of the American Meteorological Society. Sealls visited CSU in Fall 2024 at the invitation of Department Head Eric Maloney to present on African American milestones in meteorology.

AMS 2025

African Americans make up a small percentage of the field of meteorology in the United States even though their contributions to weather knowledge can be tracked to the 1880s. In response to the American Meteorological Society’s 2020 membership survey, about two percent report identifying as African American. Black or African American identities make up about 14 percent of the U.S. population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Since 2016, the percentage of graduate students identifying as Black in Colorado State University’s Department of Atmospheric Science has increased from about one percent to eight percent.

Also in 2016, Burt, who is also the Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering, published a research article about efforts to more than quadruple the percentage of students from traditionally underrepresented groups in the department. In collaboration with other CSU researchers, Burt recently published research papers on a graduate course she developed, ATS 660 Social Responsibility in Atmospheric Science, and a mentoring program supporting women undergraduates in the geosciences across 11 institutions.

Student Researcher Highlights

CSU’s graduate-only Atmospheric Science program, ranked one of the top in the county, includes

Zahler with GOES-U weather satellite solar array in the high bay at Lockheed Martin (May 2023)

students conducting research on a wide range of topics. Student researchers lead projects on topics such as cloud microphysics, severe storms, air quality, remote sensing, atmosphere-ocean dynamics, machine learning and ecosystems.

Zahler at GOES-U launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida (June 25, 2024)

Graduate student Katurah Zahler is advised by Professor Steven Miller and working with CSU’s Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere. Zahler conducts research in preparation for a new set of weather satellites scheduled to start launching in 2032. “My research focuses on quantitative analysis of satellite imagery using a new shortwave infrared satellite band that will be on GeoXO, NOAA’s next generation of operational geostationary satellites. The research aims to prepare and inform forecasters of the benefits and capabilities this new band will bring.”

Zahler is on the Board of Directors for the National Weather Association and involved with the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Access committee for the atmospheric science community at CSU. The committee formed after Burt, as part of her Associate Dean position, asked departments to bring together diversity and inclusion committees to build community.

Ph.D. candidate Erin Alexys (Lexi) Sherman is part of Associate Professor Kristen Rasmussen’s research group. Having researched changes in the snowpack of the upper Colorado River Basin for her master’s research, Sherman is currently working on thunderstorms. “I study how anthropogenic climate change will impact severe convective storms, the hazards they produce, and the potential risk these future storms will pose to society.”

Sherman also serves as the president of the Graduate Students of Color group under the CSU Graduate School. The group’s goal is to make finding community easier for graduate students with marginalized and underrepresented racial identities across the university.