Jessie Choate

I joined the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Fall 2019. After graduating from the department with my BS and MS I went on to become a member of the Warn-on-Forecast  research group at the National Severe Storms Laboratory and the Cooperative Instituted for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies in Norman, Oklahoma. My research has always focused on severe weather. As a graduate student I studied elevated mesoscale convective systems as part of the PECAN project. At the same time I was working part-time as a broadcast meteorologist at the Champaign television station WCIA. While part of NSSL, I studied the tornado and other severe weather warning times and how to extend the lead time to an hour through data assimilation in ensemble forecasting. I was also able to work directly with NWS forecasters using the ensemble product in real time to help better meet operational needs. In the evenings I completed my MBA at the University of Oklahoma with a focus on energy. 

Now that I am back at UIUC my main focus is undergraduate students! I teach two undergraduate classes a semester and and the undergraduate advisor. I help students from when they are first interested in joining the department and visiting from high school through when they are applying to graduate. A fantastic part of our department is having faculty members solely dedicated to our undergraduates' success. I am here to help make a course plan for each student's time on campus, revise the plan each semester, and even help with resumes and cover letters when employment is on the horizon.