Well, hello everyone and welcome to Meet the Experts. I'm Tim Barnes, one of the NCAR science education specialists And I'd like to welcome you to or welcome you back to Meet the Experts where we meet experts at the National Center for Atmospheric Research to do really exciting explorations into the Earth's system sciences and we will be recording the session so just so you know and Also, if you have any technology Questions along the way and you can get to chat just type in the chat and we will help you out along the way Also, if you are Needing Captioning we do have captioning turned on so you should be able to activate that in at the bottom of your screen in the menu there and We will get started In just a couple of seconds But I was curious if you wouldn't mind opening up your chat box and letting us know where you're coming in Into us from today So we have a little idea of who's here with us and Then we will go ahead and get started if you have any questions along the way You could also just enter those into the chat and that will give us a good idea of when we Should answer that question if we don't get it in the moment, we will get it closer towards the the end and Today's topic the skies the limit pathways to a future in STEM feature two of the experts at NCAR that help Help people understand how you might get involved and today we're welcoming Jerry Sikoni Who is the NCAR student program coordinator in the NCAR office for education and early career development? And we're also really happy to have joining us Virginia Doe Who is the computational and the information systems lab or? sizzle Outreach manager and Cy Park's internship director and both do education and outreach on behalf of NCAR So I'll turn it right over to Jerry. What will we start with you? Thank you Tim and Thank you for having me here Welcome everybody Just wanted to say that a big part of what all of us joining you today do at NCAR is help connect students To the science being done across the organization and the opportunities that we have for students to get involved in that science And so before I talk about what I do I'd like to get an idea of what types of STEM or earth system science careers You're interested in or that you know about and so feel free go ahead and Type in the chat those careers like I said it could be STEM or earth system science careers that you have interested Interested or just ones that you're familiar with so feel free to pop that in the chat now And while you all are typing in the chat, I'll introduce myself My name is Virginia Doe and I use this she her pronouns on the outreach manager here at NCAR and I'm the Outreach manager in NCAR's computational information systems lab That's kind of like this computer science lab of NCAR and so we help the other labs with their computer science needs I'm also the Cy Park's internship director So I run a summer internship program for college students and grad students every summer Interesting ironworks. All right. What else do we have any other? Comments as far as our system science or STEM careers that you're interested in or familiar with If you haven't joined us previously, we do have Is it called we have planes the NCAR owns that we use to go out and do collect data for Some of our research and so we do need like mechanical engineers and things like that So if you're interested in ironworks, maybe you might transition that to to like mechanical engineering There's space very cool biology Yeah We have some internships where students work on instrumentation building equipment We also have some internships to where students Are looking to see how climate change is affecting biology Aerospace as well and our HAO lab, which is our high altitude observatory lab And they do solar and space physics programming for sure Virginia could talk about that As you just saw there was a picture in front of the students in front of our super computer So we also have a super computer that we run manage and maintain And so that helps us do our science much faster Okay, we'll just wait one more moment to see if any other students would like to add their comments or Career fields and STEM or system science that they have interested Okay, we'll go ahead and and get moving then and and so part of why we did this and Geography absolutely geography and meteorology go hand-in-hand It's one of the things that actually kind of brought me into meteorology was my love for geography But our point with doing this is that what many of you may not know is that we have Positions and internships here at NCAR for more than just meteorologists Atmospheric scientists and climatologists. We also have careers and internships and engineering and computational science mathematics space and solar physics as I said and also in education and outreach just to name some All of us here in work in education and outreach in different divisions or labs at NCAR And so as Tim already said, I'm the student program coordinator and NCAR's office for education and early career development I am also the NCAR earth system science director Which is an 11 week summer program designed for undergraduate and graduate students with backgrounds in earth system science And I also co-lead the undergraduate leadership workshop or ULW alongside Tim who started us off today The ULW is a week-long immersive summer workshop that gives undergraduate students a chance to explore careers in Atmospheric science and develop their leadership potential. I Also coordinate and host the professional development workshop series alongside Virginia Which are a series of weekly workshops? Hulled over the summer with topics ranging from leadership and diversity equity inclusion training to science communication data management and visualization CV resume and diversity statement writing and these workshops lead up to a summer Poster symposium at the end of the stay for the students at the end of the internship or students from all of our summer programs Have the opportunity to share their research in the form of a science poster with their peers Families and friends and also NCAR scientists and staff So it's a great opportunity to do research at NCAR and then share the research that you're doing with the community And then I also work with a graduate visitor program or GVP and and the new GVP GVP bridge program which is an abbreviated version of the GVP Where graduate students from around the world can come to NCAR for visits that range from once to 12 months And they come to work on research related to their thesis With guidance from an NCAR scientist and then overall I help alongside others here with Communication efforts across all of our internship in some student programs so that our program leads are Supported and providing the best possible experience for our student participants And now I'll hand it over to Virginia who talked a little bit about her position here at NCAR So my primary role is working with the side parks internship program We start out in the fall by asking the mentors and scientists for what projects they have for the upcoming summer So this can be you know how to optimize or make the super computer go faster Or maybe how to create a visualization for some of the information that we have such as the sea ice caps Or trying to figure out How does the The fire how does a wildfire move? So then we post the jobs and we start recruiting by traveling I'm to go to conferences or virtual conferences to let students know about NCAR and our opportunities Then we hold interviews and we prep for the interns to come in the summer time Over the summer Jerry talked about how we work on a workshop series to build the skills of the internship Whether that's leadership skills. I'm how to create a poster things like that Then it starts all over again As an outreach manager, I also attend local public events and talk about what NCAR and sizzle do So for example, this week is a computer science and education week And so it's happening right now to go ahead and look to your local community and see if you can find any events That are based on the computer science and education week. I Also want to say that just because we work at a science center does not mean you have to be a scientist So NCAR has seven different labs and they're each doing different types of work We also have people who help support that work such as people in cybersecurity administration human resources audiovisual and so many more things So now that you've heard a little bit more about our jobs We like to share about how we got here So Jerry, can you tell us more about your path to NCAR? Thanks Virginia, I'd be happy to So I had an unconventional or nontraditional path to NCAR. I grew up in South Florida and from an early age was fascinated by severe weather and really The part of severe weather that was really fascinated by was hurricanes after Hurricane Andrew hit the area in 1992 I Knew that I wanted to be a meteorologist. It was my freshman year high school just starting my freshman year and Hurricane Andrew hit the area and yeah, it made me so interested in tropical meteorology And so I graduated high school and I started my bachelors at Florida State University in the mid 90s Wanted to be either a broadcast meteorologist or a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center Primarily that was due because those were the most high-profile meteorological positions in the area And so I gravitated right to the to them immediately However, once I was in the program at Florida State I struggled and part this is because I didn't have much financial support and had to start working a full-time job right away to pay for my classes For housing for food and I had a hard time honestly juggling both school and full-time work And so I ended up dropping out after about two years and from there I worked in the hospitality industry as a bartender and I Grew really comfortable working as a bartender. I like working with people And I ended up doing it for about 20 years before I decided that I wanted to go back to school to finish what I had started In my meteorology degree. And so I moved out to Colorado about 10 years ago And I rolled in the meteorology program at Metropolitan State University of Denver It's not a large program, but it's a great program. And so I found it was a good fit for me And while I was there I met one of my mentors Meteorology professor that was also a scientist at NCAR as named Scott Landall I applied for one of his student positions and I was accepted and so while working for him at NCAR I realized that I had an interest in working with the student programs over time And so I started helping out with these various programs during the summer one of which was pre-sip Which is a high school program that we had for local high school students And I had the support of my mentor in doing this which really helped me feel like I was I was Being supported and and able to try out new things And so when I graduated I applied for the new student program coordinator position here at NCAR and to my surprise was hired And so now I'm able to take my background in hospitality and my love of working with students and Merged it with my academic background in meteorology. And so it took me a little while to get here But I love what I do and I feel really lucky that I'm able to bring my skills for my past work experience into this role and So I plan to return to school in the next couple years to finish my master's while still working this position and with the support of NCAR And so now Virginia Would you like to talk about your career path? Awesome, thanks. So unlike Jerry, I do not have a STEM background I graduated college with a degree in ethnic studies, which is similar to sociology Which is learning about people So I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do in a career after college And so when I looked back into my time from high school and college I really enjoyed working with people and community service So I ended up pursuing a master's program in student affairs and higher education To continue working with students. So as you can see here in this photo That was a dance marathon, which we raised money for pediatric cancer So that was a 26th hour of dancing But so I had an assistantship in the community service office and I loved it After I graduated I worked as an academic advisor at a community college to help students on their own career paths So I I was still able to continue working with people and kind of the community I saw this position at NCAR to work with an internship program and I thought it sounded so cool So I took my skills of working with people and transferred it to going out into the community and connecting people to the science at NCAR While my path was not focused on STEM The skills I picked up along the way in high school and college helped me get to NCAR And and that's how that's how I'm here talking to you now In terms of just learning more about people and connecting and and so all those great things Well, I would like to ask a question of you both Do you have any tips from middle school and high school students and what they could do right now? That might help them if they want a career at a place like NCAR Yeah, which would you like to go you'd like for me to step in I Can start so I mean one of the big things I really Enjoyed middle school learning clubs and getting involved in the community So I found my passions within community service And so really being able to find and explore different ways so whether that means joining a club at your school or in your local community That's a great way to kind of explore different avenues and and figuring out what you like and enjoy Yeah, Virginia. I totally agree with you Middle school is a great time to start thinking about And start exploring all the different stem fields and earth system science fields There are out there if NCAR is someplace that you desire to work or participate in an internship as you go through high school and into college and One thing for me and as I talked about and talking about my path when I first knew I wanted to go into meteorology And I know I wanted to go into meteorology at a young age But when I first really knew that I wanted to go into it the only things the only jobs that really were Visible to me at that time or broadcast meteorology because we all have our own local broadcast meteorologists They're very high-profile. So it's easy to see that person go. Hey, I want to do that And then also because I grew up in South Florida and we are affected by hurricanes often The National Hurricane Center is located in Miami So those are the two places that I gravitated towards and I was like I want to work at either one of those places But and those are great places to work and are great goals to have But I didn't have the full perspective at that time of all the different STEM careers And positions that were that were out there and it wasn't until I went to college and started exploring more And I was in this student student assistant Position that I was able to see some of them at M car and see all the different types of jobs like My job is a student program coordinator where I can bring My background in hospitality and my love for working with with students and people and merge that with meteorology That was not even something that was I ever considered was possible So my tip for you is to go out there explore see what's out there Even if you'd like to reach out to the National Weather Service or reach out to any kind of organization In the field that you're thinking about going into emergency management or You know for me in Atlanta when I lived in Atlanta for a short period of time I reached out to the weather channel and they were able to give me a tour and a lot of times these Organizations would love love to bring students in and show them What they do there because they love seeing a student be sparked You know how they're interested sparked in that field and and propel them into You know a field or into education that fits those interests Another thing I'd like to add on to Jerry was to keep an open mind, right? So what you are doing now is might not be what you're gonna, you know what you might pursue later But just thinking about keeping the doors open and trying different opportunities So keep an open mind about what you might be interested in I totally agree with you Well, I think it might be time to open up for questions So go ahead and enter those into the chat. We'll give everyone a little time to Enter their question We had some good questions in the in the last meet the experts. I'm hopeful. We'll have some more. Don't be scared While we're waiting I can't help myself what what is your If if you don't If you really thought about it, what what's super peer? What superpower do you actually have? Right now and maybe what would you like to have to do your job? I can I can jump in there What a superpower that I that I think I have that it that is really beneficial in this job. What is my? Organizational skills helped me a lot within this position. I like to stay organized. It helps me In my process of keeping things together and being on top of all the tasks that are Assigned to me or that I have to do so organizational skills for sure Being able to multitask at times and also I love working with people and so I'm an extrovert I think Me being an extrovert has served me well as a bartender and also serves me well in this position to where I not only work with a lot of different people across the organization for different things But I also work with a lot of different students from diverse backgrounds. And so I I think that's for me is is probably my biggest superpower I definitely agree to that as your superpower. Jerry. That's like what you do. You're always so inviting and welcoming But I guess for my superpower Like what I would hope to have is The ability to go super fast Just so if I'm working on a project and there's something that I'm getting stuck on or you know being a little bit more I need to be more efficient on something so being quick so that I can You know do this stuff quickly that are a little bit less, you know, exciting but then it really enjoy the stuff that is fun and Looks like we got a lot of questions in the chat wonderful Let's see. What qualifications do you need to have for high school opportunities or internships? And and that's really kind of internship specific what they'll ask of you But overall When I did work With Scott Landau my mentor and running the preset program, which was the high school program for students interested in and atmospheric scientists local students here and in the Boulder front or colorado front range area what we asked for usually was a statement of interest You know why you would like to be a part of this program? What interests you about meteorology? What specifically within meteorology or stem or or system science interests you? We'd like to see a well well-rounded student in that they participate in different school activities GPA yeah, it is important to an extent But you don't have to have straight A's to be in an internship We really look at the whole picture. We look to see You know what your interests are like I said What activities are you involved in in school and maybe within your community? and then and and then from there we'll look at your grades as well, but it's You know, it's not going to keep you in my opinion and for the internships that I've run That involve high school students The the GPA isn't the you know, isn't the final word for us We want us to see if you're a well-rounded student and and how much interest that you have in and car and how we can support you in that interest I can take the next one as what's the favorite part of your job So I really enjoy getting to know and meet the students every year so In the wintertime we do interviews and you start to get to see Just some emails and sometimes you'll hear them on the phone for the interviews And then when they come in may or they come virtually That's when you get to meet them and get to know them You have weekly meetings with the students and and and go on field trips with them. And so Getting to have that relationship is really cool Additionally, a lot of times we'll have I'll go downstairs to the cafeteria And I'll see a group of interns sitting together and I'll sit down with them and have a chat Over lunchtime. So that is one of my favorite things about working at NCAR. How about you jerry? Very much the same virginia. I love working with the students Our busiest time of the year is during the summer when many of our internship Student programs are in full swing and it's a lot going on and it's long days But I love being able to work with the students and getting to know them and help support them and what they want to do And on their career and academic path I also really love at this time of the year in the fall when I do recruiting and I get to go to I get I get to go to different science society conferences across the country and meet different students and different scientists and Talk about our programs at NCAR and get those students excited about our programs And one of the most fulfilling things for me is to see a student that I talked to maybe a year Or so ago talk to them talk to them about a specific program and then actually see them in the program You know during a summer at a different time during the year. That's one of my favorite things to see in this role I love it We got one question is how old were you when you felt comfortable working with others at work? So I feel like I want to kind of shift this to say In high school I was in clubs and I held leadership positions in clubs and these were Like with my friends and so being able to work with my friends was really fun. And so Even though it wasn't a job where I got paid It was a position in which I had to do work Right and so being able to work on a team with my friends was one of the first You know realize that I love working with people. It's really fun There's some jobs where you might not see people for too much time But that's not a job that I could do personally But really figuring out that you know being able to interact with people On a day to day was really great Jerry how about yourself? Yeah, for me. I would say when I was in about elementary school. I was kind of an awkward kid I was a little bit anti-social I guess I didn't have a lot of friends at that time And so I didn't have a lot of confidence in working with a large groups of people and and as I started moving into Middle school and then into high school I started becoming much more comfortable with myself and working with other people and started doing what virginia did and joining Different organizations and kind of finding my voice Over time. I want to say That not everyone, you know, I stated out. I'm an extrovert not everyone is you don't have to be an extrovert By any means to be a scientist or work at NCAR, but it is important to learn To me you to me. I kind of think you are but no, I I get you virginia I just wanted to say that While being an extrovert is not a necessity in being in a STEM or assistant science career The ability to work to work well with others will come into play over time There'll be times when you'll be working by yourself And sometimes I enjoy working by myself, even though I'm an extrovert But being able to work with different diverse groups of people is important Whether you're in STEM or assistant science or really any field quite honestly And then what clubs were you in when you were in school? So one of the clubs I was in was called pal peer assistance and leadership and we did we practiced mediation scenarios And so I had a leadership role in that when I was one of the pal co-presidents So that was one of the ones that stand out most I was also in a few community service groups One was the key club, which was I think sure for Kiwanis And so we did a lot of beach cleanups and things like that Jerry, how about yourself? Yeah, I did Florida future educators I did student government and then I was Heavily involved in and in band marching band concert band jazz band. I did chorus. I did drama club I I I wanted to be involved in everything But I was in high school basically and so you know not all of those things Are you know are directly related to meteorology? But they all helped in me being comfortable working with other people and learning about myself You know who I am and and what things I wanted to do as I got older We got a tough question. How did covet affect our work? So I'm going to say greatly as it did the whole world So like we mentioned usually our interns come to boulder in person and they stay at our house at our local housing nearby and so this The past two years the students were not able to travel to boulder for this Internship so we held the internship completely virtually. So that's where all those zoom boxes Brady bunch family photos are are pretty prevalent and so So with covet we had to switch our gears and figuring out. How do we still create? A really immersive program for our students And so that's where Jerry and I worked together to figure out what that would mean So we moved all our programs virtually Yeah, and and I'm I'm sure your Teachers that are here with you today and ones that are not can fully relate to this because they had to do this as well and they probably had to do it within short order because You know covet happened and a lot of places started locking down and for us it that was happening Right before our summer programs were getting ready to start. So we had to pivot quickly and learn Um, how to be able to support students in this virtual environment Luckily, we have a division of n car called comet that really specializes in educational resources online and so we Brought in some of those experts to help us learn some tools and platforms and and tips on how To run a program like this in a virtual setting and to really be able to support our students in doing so Trying to create the connections as best we could That we're missing from in-person programming I there's one question That asks, uh, do you Do any research on the sun and can you predict when it will die? I personally don't do any research on the sun. There is work being done at n car that involves the sun um, I don't know when the the sun is um Planning to extinguish. I know it's not anytime soon Um, not at any time where uh, you know, while any of us will be alive But um, if you'd like some further information about that feel free to you can reach out to me at my email address And I can reach out to a scientist in our uh higher altitude observatory lab And maybe get some answers for you. I want to put my email in the chat And then there's a question of do any artists work at n car And I guess I want to be loose with the term artists So for example, we have people who create visualizations And so when the scientists go out and they collect data And they want to be able to communicate that or they can tell the story about what they learned Many times they're going to have to create a visualization. So for instance They want to show about the ice caps the changing of the ice caps And so they someone has to create what that looks like so someone can understand how the ice caps are changing um And additionally, um, we have people here who are singers and that's a form of artistry. And so there is one Art there's a one educational exhibit that has music that is connected with climate And so when you press a you know Uh a day um, you can see what that might quote sound like so they connected those sounds With climate Yeah, we also just to add to that. We also have some employees here that have that that we're multiple hats For an office that I work in an education and outreach I have a administrative assistant that I work with closely named aliyah and They have great skills and graphic design and so Um They jump in and help at times when we need to create flyers or need to create pamphlets to Take to those recruiting events like i'm going to be doing in new orleans this coming week and so to make our You know our flyers stand out in a sea of other organizations and other flyers So when a student comes up and they go wow this internship really looks cool I want to be a part of it. Um, we have help in doing that because not all of us are great At being able to put things together visually So there is there are places At encar for people that have artistic backgrounds There is another person On jerry's team who I know is very good at crocheting And she like sells her art and stuff and she makes uh jewelry and I always love her seeing her stuff Oh larena. Yeah, larena. We we do a christmas Kind of like christmas crafts shop at encar To where one of our one of our facilities facilities on our campuses We open up one of the buildings and and artists that also work at encar Can show some of the stuff that they do arts and crafts stuff some of it is really cool and we get to go It's right before the holidays and we get to go and find some really unique kind of gifts for Christmas or for the holidays for family and friends Um got a question do you Sure. Yeah, do you travel for your job? Yeah for for me? I do travel It is part of what I do. It's part of what I love to do As part of this job and so the fall during this time of the year and into winter I travel a different society science society meetings like the american meteorological society meeting which is in january The agu or american geophysical union Meeting which is starts next week on monday. So i'll be traveling to new orleans On sunday and we'll be there for a week and while i'm there i i'm going to be presenting A poster on the ulw the undergraduate leadership workshop that i said i work with tim on And also we'll just be meeting students in different networking events to tell them about all the opportunities that we have here at encar Short enter is yes It was wonderful before and then and they change constantly so i was going to new places Yeah Well, i'm really really happy to hear all of these The answers to these broad set of questions, but uh gerion Um, virginia, do you have any? Any final advice any final words that you'd like to share before we do finish up this episode of meet the experts I want to start with just get involved and try new things And you might be surprised to find the things that you really enjoy Yeah, explore see what's out there. See what things interest you and and dive into them Try to find out all the different Fields that you know come along with that interest all the things that you could do as a professional Maybe even i know many of you were in middle school But start thinking about maybe if you have an idea of what you want to do start looking at possible schools Um that have programs that could support you when you go into college If that's something that you would like to do, you know keep an open mind along the way and don't hesitate to reach out to um those organizations and companies like i said The national weather service or the weather channel or or here like encar feel free to reach out to us if you have Any questions we're here to support you we're here to answer those questions and we're here to bring you into You know earth system science and stem as much as we can Excellent everyone I think we are just about at the end of our time and i'd like to thank everybody again for joining us Virginia dough and jerry sconey Encar an education and outreach. Thank you so much for being here and sharing and I know that we did lose one of our participant groups already But thank you for all your questions And uh, we're glad that it's all you see that it's you feel that it's helpful. We're really uh, happy to hear that And uh meet the experts will continue into the year 2022. So next month you can join us on january 27th for storing science for supercomputers What could that possibly be about and uh, so we'll see you then. Thank you so much for joining us Bye