News:
About me:
I am currently Associate Professor of Atmospheric Science at Purdue University in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences. I founded the Purdue Weather and Climate Risk Internship program, which links our students to internship opportunities in the emerging job market of weather-dependent decision-making. This effort is funded by my NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award.
Before starting at Purdue, I was an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Princeton University. I received my PhD in Atmospheric Science from MIT and B.S. in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and Applied Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Between undergrad and grad school, I studied abroad in Montpellier, France, spent a summer as a volunteer teacher in Tamale, Ghana, interned at the World Meteorological Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, and worked as a research associate at the Joint Global Change Research Institute in College Park, MD while living in Washington DC. Before my post-doc I went on a beautiful 2-month road trip across the western U.S.. I believe science requires imagination. I find a lot of inspiration from creative people and things outside of science: Imaginary Worlds ("how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief") and 99% Invisible; Donald Glover, Youth Lagoon, Kishi Bashi, Andrew Bird, Lizzo, and Lin-Manuel Miranda; Ali Wong, Dave Chappelle, and Trevor Noah; Antoni Gaudi, and Frank Lloyd Wright; Michel Gondry, Inside Out, Justin Willman (Magic for Humans), and Anthony Bourdain (RIP); and the many worlds that children create and inhabit like Bluey, Kiri and Lou and Hilda. I talk a bit about this in my Climate Scientists podcast episode with Dan Jones. My wife Laura is Principal Analyst at CB Insights, and we have a fearless little daughter Maya and toddler son Sam. I'm ethnically ambiguous. A life goal of mine is to do a crossword puzzle scratch-off ticket in all 43 states that offer them.
Dan Chavas
Purdue University
Dept. of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
550 Stadium Mall Drive, HAMP 3221
West Lafayette, IN 47907
Email: dchavas @ purdue dot edu
Twitter: @drchavas
Purdue Weather and Climate Risk Internship Program
YouTube playlist
The Science of Global Warming