Richard Anthes: Professor, Adviser, and Mentor (Invited Presentation)

By a fortunate coincidence, Rick Anthes and I arrived at Penn State within a month of each other in 1971, he an assistant professor and I a freshman undergraduate meteorology major. Rick was assigned as my undergraduate adviser in the fall term of my freshman year, initiating a professional and personal relationship that continues through this day. By further coincidence, Rick and I left Penn State in 1981, when he headed to NCAR and I to NASA/Goddard. These sequential coincidences enabled me to closely observe Rick in action as a research scientist and professor making pioneering contributions to tropical and mesoscale meteorology and numerical weather prediction. In this presentation, I will take a retrospective look at the Penn State phase of Rick’s career, spanning 1971–1981, from the vantage point of an undergraduate and graduate student, with emphasis on the principles and practices that informed his teaching, advising, and mentoring. In this retrospective look, I will provide anecdotal examples of the application of these principles and practices, and describe how they were manifested in skillful and influential classroom teaching and in effective and inspiring advising and mentoring, which challenged, motivated, and prepared Rick’s students to pursue careers in diverse sectors of the atmospheric science enterprise.