Storm student
Photos courtesy of Laura Dailey April 03, 2024
UD undergraduate student Laura Dailey set to graduate and pursue her interest in climate science
Growing up in Marlton, New Jersey, University of Delaware student Laura Dailey remembers being drawn to storms from a young age. With her face pressed up against the glass windows of her parents’ house, she would watch excitedly as lightning struck and thunder boomed as storms passed by. She would even tune in to the local television networks to try to forecast the weather with her local broadcast meteorologist, while dreaming of one day working with the weather.
Now, as a senior honors student majoring in meteorology and climate science in UD’s College of Earth, Ocean and Environment, with minors in journalism and geography — as well as a recently earned geographic information systems certificate — Dailey is one step closer to making that dream a reality.
Having grown more familiar with the field of meteorology during her time at UD, Dailey said she can envision herself working in many different fields within the concentration.
“There are so many possibilities in meteorology and every field excites me,” Dailey said. “Whether that is doing research, being a scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), being a broadcast meteorologist, or just working in forecasting in general — anything of that nature excites me.”
Dailey’s plan is to go to graduate school to expand her knowledge and explore her future career path. She has always enjoyed forecasting the weather, and with the impacts of climate change becoming more of a reality to many across the world, she is also interested in climate policy and climate communications.
“I think communities need to be more aware of what climate change means for them and for the whole world. A lot of people distance themselves from the problem and don’t think that they are in an area of concern, so they don't think it is important to act,” Dailey said. “Making climate information available to all people in a way that they understand the crisis and care enough to act can help prevent the extreme risks of climate change from occurring either more frequently or more intensely in their area.”
When she started taking her meteorology classes at UD, Dailey fell even more in love with the discipline. With smaller class sizes, she was able to make great connections with her professors and fellow classmates. She singled out Dan Leathers, professor and the director of meteorology and climate science at UD, for helping her understand the meteorologic material in a way that was exciting, saying that he “was a great teacher, really cared about his students and wanted them to do well and understand the material.”
Dailey also serves as the president of the UD student chapter of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), which she has been involved with since she was a first-year student. AMS has been instrumental in helping Dailey on her meteorological career path. She received a scholarship from AMS that year and was recently named the recipient of the Dr. Terry C. Tarbell Senior Scholarship. In addition, she has been able to attend national AMS meetings in Denver, Colorado, and Baltimore, Maryland, and said they were both incredible experiences.
“The AMS annual meeting is a big meteorology conference with many different professionals from across the field that come together to share their research,” Dailey said. “That allowed me — and students like me — to network with different people. It was at this conference that I realized meteorology is what I want to be doing. Everyone I met was so cool and I knew I wanted to continue to be involved with AMS and this overarching network of people.”
She also completed internships with Fox Weather and NOAA during her time at UD.
Overall, Dailey is happy that she chose to study meteorology at UD and is excited to see what comes next on her meteorological journey.
“Not many schools offer meteorology. Coming into college, I knew I wanted to do meteorology, and at the end of the day, UD just made me feel the most comfortable,” Dailey said. “I want to continue meteorology and plan on going to graduate school to further my knowledge and education. During my time at UD, I’ve learned I really like weather and climate communications, so hopefully, I can incorporate communications in my future work to make the public aware of what’s happening and help as many communities as possible.”
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