Aaron Sims

Interim Director / Associate State Climatologist
151 Research III Building, Centennial Campus
Box 7236, North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7236
Telephone: 919-513-2101
Email: aaron_sims@ncsu.edu

Originally from Raleigh, Aaron Sims joined the Climate Office as an environmental meteorologist in 2004. Aaron designs, develops, and manages all of the computing infrastructure and modeling systems. Aaron is always striving to improve our operational capabilities and continues to develop in-house model evaluation tools. He is engaged in the development and implementation of quality control procedures and also aids our instrumentation meteorologists in ECONet site selection, installation, and maintenance. He is continually working with other staff members and students to develop new applications for agriculture and other weather-sensitive sectors. Aaron is also working to explore and build new avenues for accessing and distributing environmental data.

Heather Dinon Aldridge

Interim Assistant Director / Assistant State Climatologist
153 Research III Building, Centennial Campus
Box 7236, North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7236
Telephone: 919-513-0244
Email: heather_aldridge@ncsu.edu

Heather is a native New Englander, growing up close to Boston and attending Plymouth State University where she received a B.S. in Meteorology in May 2008. She then ventured to North Carolina to pursue an M.S. in Atmospheric Science from North Carolina State University and graduated in May 2011. During her graduate studies, she explored climate variability for crop management in the Southeast US and really embraced applied climate research through her interactions with the Southeast Climate Consortium (SECC). She also developed a decision support tool with reference evapotranspiration estimates, which was adapted for SECC’s open source version of their decision support system, AgroClimate.

In August 2011, she started working as an Applied Climatologist for the State Climate Office and currently leads the office’s interactions with the Pine Integrated Network: Education, Mitigation, and Adaptation Project, or PINEMAP. Her main duties on this project include developing a decision support system for forest landowners, presenting climate information and the impacts to forest systems through written and oral communication, and providing climate data to support PINEMAP researchers. Heather also has a passion for outreach and is currently serving as the co-state coordinator for NC CoCoRaHS, a volunteer network of precipitation observers.

Ashley Hiatt

Environmental Meteorologist
137 Research III Building, Centennial Campus
Box 7236, North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7236
Telephone: 919-515-1440
Email: ashley_hiatt@ncsu.edu

Ashley Hiatt was born in Burlington, NC. In 2005, she received a B.S. in Meteorology at NCSU, with a minor in statistics. Ashley became an employee of the SCO after graduation, and was initially involved in creating statistical evaluation tools of the SCO's operational model. She has also researched climate change in NC for the Global Climate Change Commission, and worked to expand the CRONOS database to include data from various water sites (streamflow, groundwater, reservoir, etc.) across the Southeast. Ashley's main duties are to maintain the SCO website, develop decision-based support tools for climate-sensitive communities, and assist in data retrieval services. In the future, Ashley hopes to continue work with state agencies and institutions in developing science applications.

Sean Heuser

ECONet Manager
143 Research III Building, Centennial Campus
Box 7236, North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7236
Telephone: 919-515-0411
Email: spheuser@ncsu.edu

Sean Heuser was born in Raleigh, NC. He received a B.S in Atmospheric Science with a minor in Mathematics from UNC-Asheville in 2005. He then completed a M.S. in Atmospheric Science from NC State in 2010. Sean's masters work involved modeling the effects of land use with regards to the glacial mass at the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Today, Sean helps maintain the North Carolina ECONet stations as well as updating the quality control procedures for all data coming into the SCO. Furthermore, Sean is now helping with the National Mesonet Program in updating metadata for all ECONet stations. In the future, Sean hopes to begin development of regional seasonal forecasts for North Carolina and the southeastern US.

John McGuire

Applied Meteorologist and Web Developer
139 Research III Building, Centennial Campus
Box 7236, North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7236
Telephone: 919-515-0412
Email: jamcguir@ncsu.edu

John was born in Chicago and grew up in Raleigh. In May 2008, he graduated from NC State with a B.S. in Meteorology with a mathematics minor. Hired in January 2009, John's primary role for the State Climate Office is developing and optimizing weather-based products for the SCO and the NOAA Southeast Regional Climate Center, with a heavy involvement with database, website, and system management. He also assists instrumentation meteorologists with ECONet maintenance. John's day-to-day activities includes researching, developing, and supporting server-side and client-side products designed to help other staff, students, researchers and the public. In December 2013, John received his M.S. in Atmospheric Sciences from NC State, where his research focused on data assimilation and freeze risk associated with cold-air drainage in the Yadkin Valley of North Carolina.

Some of his recent projects include SERCC's Climate Perspectives, data quality control monitoring interfaces, new CRONOS web mapping interfaces, gridded data visualization and mobile development. In the past, John has worked at the SCO as an undergraduate researcher creating a sea surface climatology, evaluating the peanut disease advisory product with model forecast data, and performing an analysis on the intensification of winter coastal storms for the 2005 and 2006 seasons.

Gregory Deleruyelle

Administrative Support Specialist
147 Research III Building, Centennial Campus
Box 7236, North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7236
Telephone: 919-515-1667
Email: gdeleru@ncsu.edu

Greg grew up in Fairmont, WV and is a 1999 graduate of Appalachian State University. He spent 3 years in Japan working for a Japanese company prior to his employment at NC State, which began in 2007. Greg currently serves as the HR Specialist for both the State Climate Office and The Science House.

Rebecca Cumbie Ward

Extension Climatologist
145 Research III Building, Centennial Campus
Box 7236, North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7236
Telephone: 919-513-2444
Email: rvcumbie@ncsu.edu

Rebecca Cumbie grew up in the town of Newport on the coast of North Carolina. There she experienced a wide variety of weather, from hurricanes to snowstorms, and developed an interest in North Carolina’s unique weather and climate. After earning B.S. Degrees in Meteorology and Applied Mathematics from NC State University in 2011, Rebecca began pursuing a M.S. in Atmospheric Science. In 2013 Rebecca began working for the NC State Climate Office as an Extension Climatologist, and in 2014 she obtained her M.S. Degree. Much of her current work focuses on understanding and measuring drought. Of note, she developed an operational, high-resolution Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) product based on radar-derived precipitation estimates to measure drought for the contiguous US. The resolution of this product is approximately 5km and has the ability to capture significant spatial variation in drought severity. She also is a member of the North Carolina Drought Management Advisory Council and participates in weekly technical team calls.

Understanding how North Carolina’s weather and climate influences the various sectors within the state, such as agriculture and natural resources, and sharing this knowledge is one of the things Rebecca finds most enjoyable about her work with the NC SCO. Rebecca also interacts with the public daily by answering phone calls or emails from people interested in obtaining weather data or learning more about North Carolina’s climate. Additionally, she helps give tours of the State Climate Office and nearby ECONet stations as well as assisting in routine maintenance to ECONet stations.

Nathan Parker

Technology Support Specialist
135 Research III Building, Centennial Campus
Box 7236, North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7236
Telephone: 919-513-0927
Email: nwparker@ncsu.edu

Born in New Bern, NC, Nathan was raised in Albuquerque, NM, where he received his BBA from the University of New Mexico in 2007. Nathan moved to Raleigh in 2008 after accepting a position with North Carolina State University. He works with both the Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences as well as the State Climate Office doing computer infrastructure support. Nathan strives to contribute to the goals and aspirations of each department by providing quality support for both educational and research needs. His job duties for the State Climate Office are to ensure that the servers that are used to serve our resources are operating efficiently while working to ensure all the products we use are available and up to date.

Corey Davis

Applied Climatologist
141 Research III Building, Centennial Campus
Box 7236, North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7236
Telephone: 919-513-1390
Email: cndavis@ncsu.edu

Corey is a lifelong North Carolina resident originally from the Triad town of Kernersville. In 2009, Corey received his B.S. in Meteorology with a minor in Journalism from NC State, and in 2014, he received his M.S. in Atmospheric Science from NC State after studying fire risk climatology and predictability in North Carolina. Since joining the SCO in 2008, Corey has developed a number of web products including the Fire Weather Intelligence Portal, contributed to the SCO's Climate Blog and other outreach activities, and researched the influence of global climate patterns on North Carolina's weather. Corey joined the SCO staff as an Applied Climatologist in 2014 and will continue developing web tools such as the decision support system for the PINEMAP project and helping the SCO in its science communication and outreach efforts.

Jim Epps

Instrument Technician
133 Research III Building, Centennial Campus
Box 7236, North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7236
Telephone: 919-515-4052
Email: jmepps@ncsu.edu

Jim Epps was born in Richmond, Virginia and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. Jim finished his BS in Mechanical Engineering in May 1992 and MS in Marine Science in August of 1999, both degrees from North Carolina State University. While working on his Masters, Jim was hired by the Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at NCSU to perform data reduction for the Oceans Margin Program from 1996 through 1997. Jim continued work at NCSU designing, programming, and deploying subsurface mooring systems for the Coastal Ocean Research Monitoring Program as well as collecting and processing data from the National Hurricane Center, National Climatic Data Center, National Ocean Service, and National Data Buoy Center. This has included the use of Empirical Mode Decomposition and Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition. From 2007 through 2008, Jim worked with instrumentation and data recovery/reduction of real-time mooring systems in the Carolinas Coastal Ocean Observing and Prediction System. From 2009 through 2010, he worked with all aspects of real-time mooring deployment and data management during the Palmetto Wind Program. From 2011 through 2015, Jim worked for Coastal Carolina University supporting real-time mooring operations, data processing, and MesoUS, US Mesonet consortium, on expansion of the National Mesonet. Jim currently works for the NC State Climate Office in support of the North Carolina Environment and Climate Observing Network.

Adrienne Wootten

Graduate Research Assistant / Environmental Meteorologist
132 Research III Building, Centennial Campus
Box 7236, North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7236
Telephone: 919-515-3056
Email: amwootte@ncsu.edu

Adrienne was born in Carmel, NY but grew up in Maryland. In May 2008, Adrienne graduated from NC State University with a bachelor's degree in Meteorology and a minor in Statistics. In December 2011 she received her Master's degree in Atmospheric Science for her work on statistical downscaling of global climate models to improve seasonal precipitation forecasts in North Carolina. Adrienne has worked on evaluating the Multisensor Precipitation Estimate Data using several statistical analyses. She is currently working on several statistical analyses including implementation of, and improvements to the local seasonal forecasting through downscaling techniques.

Geneva Gray

Graduate Research Assistant / Environmental Meteorologist
132 Research III Building, Centennial Campus
Box 7236, North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7236
Telephone: 919-515-3056
Email: gmely2@ncsu.edu

Geneva is from Fayetteville, NC but currently calls Raleigh home. She is a junior pursuing two bachelor's degrees in Meteorology and Environmental Sciences with a concentration in Air Quality. Her learning and research interests are in Atmospheric Chemistry and Air Quality. Geneva's current projects include expanding the current Tobacco Thrips Forecast Tool and aiding in the statistical analysis of Multisensor Precipitation Estimate (MPE) Data. She also assists in data request and ECONet tower maintenance. Previous work includes developing parts of the ECONet quality control moderation system used internally by the staff here at the State Climate Office.

Rachel Bobyak

Research Assistant

130 Research III Building
Telephone: 919-515-3056
Email: rebobyak@ncsu.edu

Rachel grew up in Frederick, Maryland where she fell in love with the weather and its interaction with the Earth. She recently achieved a Bachelor of Science in Meteorology with a Minor in Geology from North Carolina State University. Her work with the State Climate Office involves dynamic data mapping, which will help display weather and climate information in a more user friendly way. In the Spring of 2016, she completed a research project focused on analyzing drought patterns for the past 2000 years, which she presented at NC State's Undergraduate Research Symposium.

Aurelia Baca

Research Assistant

130 Research III Building
Telephone: 919-515-3056
Email: adbaca@ncsu.edu

Aurelia was born in Santa Monica, California and grew up in Cary, North Carolina. Aurelia graduated from the University of North Carolina at Asheville with a bachelor's of science in Atmospheric Sciences and a minor in mathematics. She recently completed her Master's in Climate Change and Society at North Carolina State University. Currently a climate specialist for the USDA Southeast Regional Climate Hub, Aurelia is researching how climate variability impacts working lands and develop relevant tools to assist land managers.

Kelley DePolt

Undergraduate Assistant

130 Research III Building
Telephone: 919-515-3056
Email: ktdepolt@ncsu.edu

Kelley is originally from Massachusetts, but has lived in Kentucky and Florida before finally moving to North Carolina. She is a rising sophomore pursuing a bachelor's degree in Meteorology at North Carolina State University. Currently, her work at the State Climate Office includes updating station metadata for the CRONOS database by cross-referencing the Historical Observing Metadata Repository (HOMR). After finishing her degree, Kelley hopes to continue to explore the field of research while attending graduate school.

Andrew Henderson

Undergraduate Assistant

130 Research III Building
Telephone: 919-515-3056
Email: tahender@ncsu.edu

Andrew was born in Greenville, South Carolina and grew up in Clayton, North Carolina. He is currently a Junior majoring in Meteorology at North Carolina State University. After completion of his undergraduate career, Andrew plans to continue studying meteorology in graduate school. His favorite weather phenomenon is lightning, and he hopes to conduct research on the formation and occurrence of lightning at some point in his career. Over the summer, Andrew will be undertaking a project analyzing the different soil classes found in North Carolina in addition to gathering local streamflow data in the field. He will also conduct a controlled laboratory experiment comparing the performance of various soil moisture sensors in an effort to improve quality control of soil moisture data that is collected at the State Climate Office.

Kieran Riban

Undergraduate Assistant

130 Research III Building
Telephone: 919-515-3056
Email: keriban@ncsu.edu

Kieran was born in Georgia, but grew up in Athens, Pennsylvania. She is a rising junior at North Carolina State University studying Statistics with a minor in Economics. She has always been interested in the many applications of statistics, including atmospheric sciences. Her summer project at the Climate Office involves determining the accuracy of certain statistical models in predicting weather observations.

Karl Schneider

Undergraduate Assistant

130 Research III Building
Telephone: 919-515-3056
Email: knschnei@ncsu.edu

Karl grew up in Raleigh, and he's still here studying Applied Mathematics and Statistics as a junior at NC State. Karl enjoys working with all kinds of data and is excited to be working with the Climate Office's. He is evaluating the performance of drought indices developed by the office against objective indicators of agricultural and hydrological droughts such as soil moisture and streamflow.

Shar Siddiqui

Undergraduate Assistant

130 Research III Building
Telephone: 919-515-3056
Email: ssiddiq@ncsu.edu

Shar grew up in Boca Raton, Florida and is currently pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Biological Engineering with a minor in International Development and Humanitarian Assistance at the University of Florida. She is interested in using modeling techniques and analysis to guide policy decisions for the effective conservation of forests and biodiversity. After graduation, Shar hopes to pursue a graduate degree in Environmental Engineering and work to create tools that support both communities and natural resources.

Lexia Williams

Undergraduate Assistant

130 Research III Building
Telephone: 919-515-3056
Email: lwillia9@ncsu.edu

Lexia was born in St. Paul, Minnesota and grew up in Asheville, North Carolina. Currently a fourth-year Senior, she is majoring in Meteorology and minoring in Mathematics at North Carolina State University and is hoping to focus her education on tropical weather during Graduate School. Lexia’s project compares precipitation in each of North Carolina’s climate division and determines the effects that global events such as El Niño, La Niña, and Hurricanes have in these divisions.

Ameenulla Syed

Instrumentation Engineer (retired)
131 Research III Building, Centennial Campus
Box 7236, North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7236
Telephone: 919-515-1448
Email: asyed@ncsu.edu

Ameenulla Syed was born in India, where he worked for the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore with a Diploma in Sound Engineering for several years. While employed at the Institute, Ameenulla pursued a Bachelors Degree in Electronics Engineering (1981), and later completed his Masters Degree in Aerospace Engineering (Instrumentation) from the Indian Institute of Science (1997). Over the years, he has worked on various research projects and participated in national and international field experiments at various levels such as Lead Instrumentation Engineer/ co-Project Investigator. Experiments include 1) Monsoon Experiment (MONEX) 1979, 2) Experiment during Total Solar Eclipse in India 1980, 3) Genesis of Atlantic Lows Experiment (GALE) 1985-86, 4) Monsoon Trough Atmospheric Boundary Layer Experiment (MONTBLEX) 1990, 5) Vegetation and Surface Energy Balance Experiment (VEBEX) 1998, 6) Indian Ocean Experiment (INDOEX) 1997-99, 7) Bay of Bengal Monsoon Experiment (BOBMEX) 1998-99. Ameenulla has published research papers in peer-reviewed journals and authored scientific reports for different compliance and regulatory agencies.

Ameenulla began working for the SCO to modernize the NC ECONet, which currently consists of about 30 weather stations across the state, and measures parameters like soil temperature, solar radiation, and evapotranspiration, in addition to temperature, precipitation, and winds. Ameenulla serves as the SCO's instrumentation expert. He has developed an auto clean mechanism for precipitation gages, and is working on an all-season, low power precipitation sensor. As manager of the ECONet, he oversees the installation, maintenance, and improvement of weather sensors at the various sites. He also helps in implementing quality assessment and quality control procedures for this data. In the future, Ameenulla wants to expand the ECONet across NC, and continue in-house design and development of weather sensors.