Charting the Course for the Road Less Traveled: My Perspective from the Intersection of Training, Research, and Operations

Technically, my job title with the University of Oklahoma's Cooperative Institute for Severe and High Impact Weather Research and Operations (CIWRO) is "Research Associate III". Within my federal unit, the NOAA/NWS Warning Decision Training Division (WDTD), my job title is "Instructional Meteorologist". But neither of these titles gets to the heart of my job, which in reality is a blend of the two titles and is facilitated by WDTD's proximity to the NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL). To keep things simple, I have dubbed myself WDTD's R2O/O2R Liaison, though most of my work is with NSSL. In this position, a first-of-its-kind within CIWRO, WDTD, and NSSL, I perform a mixture of training, R2O/O2R activities aimed toward NWS forecasters, and actual research activities that are funded by federal grants. On the training side, I develop and manage warning operations decision-making training courses and lessons. On the R2O/O2R side, I created an NWS webinar series entitled "R2O/O2R Tales (ROOTs)" that showcases NWS forecasters using experimental tools and techniques during warning operations. And on the research side, I am a member of an NWS-focused research team–as part of this group, I was even the lead principal investigator of a federally-funded research project..

How did I get here? I took the road less traveled based on my personal interests, and I took advantage of opportunities that were presented to me. Early in my career, I asked my project manager if I could be involved in his research project that was creating a new product for NWS warning operations. I really enjoyed it and dreamed of working on training activities for the product's hopeful implementation into NWS warning operations. Then I heard about an opportunity where NSSL wanted to fund a WDTD employee to help forecasters learn about these and other NSSL research projects now, rather than when the products are slated to become operational. This was right up my alley, so I immediately volunteered for the opportunity and have since become WDTD's R2O/O2R liaison.

I would like to use this opportunity at the 2025 AMS Annual Meeting to encourage students and professionals to pursue careers they enjoy and to make the most of opportunities that are easily accessible and/or presented to them. Also, I would like to show that not all federal-adjacent jobs are forecasting or involve shift work. Finally, I want to encourage them to take the road less traveled because sometimes, it is more fulfilling than the well-traveled road.