My name is Delián Colón-Burgos,, and I am an Atmospheric Science Ph.D. student at Colorado State University (CSU). During the summer of 2020, I participated in the NSF’s Weather, Climate, and Society REU, hosted by the University of South Florida. Our summer was especially unique because it was held online, and I felt incredibly fortunate to still have the chance to develop my research skills and build a strong cohort, especially since so many programs had been canceled that year.
During the summer I worked with Dr. Jennifer Collins and researched the perceptions of risk and evacuation decisions of Florida residents in the age of COVID-19, with the purpose of understanding the perceived and real risk factors that individuals consider in making hurricane evacuation decisions during a pandemic. The results of this research helped emergency managers launch an educational campaign explaining the COVID-19 safety measures in shelters, which reduced fear of seeking shelter. I gained so many skills in research, from survey data cleaning, statistics, science communication and visualization, and I saw firsthand the results and importance of doing actionable science and interdisciplinary research.
After the REU, our team published the summer’s work in a peer-reviewed journal, which opened the door to further research collaborations with the REU team during my undergraduate years and resulted in additional co-authored publications. One of the things that I have appreciated the most from this experience is the friendships one builds and its alumni network, that I still rely on today. I also got to meet past participants of the REU during the alumni panel, including Amanda Bowen, which at the time was a graduate student at CSU. At the AMS conference I got to meet Dr. Collins and Amanda for the first time in person, and she was one of my resources when I had questions about going to graduate school at CSU. Up to this day, we keep in contact and celebrate each other’s accomplishments.
The Weather, Climate, and Society REU was that first opportunity in research, that changed my whole perspective of the field and opened my eyes to the possibility of graduate school. The REU opened the doors to many other incredible experiences, many that I didn’t even think were possible.
After the REU, in the summer of 2021 I got to participate in the Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science (SOARS) at NSF NCAR, where I worked alongside scientists from various agencies on a project examining decadal-scale changes in drought-related climate parameters in the Northern Great Plains. After, I was awarded the NOAA Ernest F. Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship where I got to do a research internship at the National Hurricane Center, experience that made me certain that I wanted to focus on tropical meteorology in graduate school.
In 2023 I started graduate school at CSU at the TC-RAMS team, where I contribute to the CSU Seasonal Hurricane Forecast, and have been able to participate in two field campaigns with the CSU Sea-Pol Radar (an NSF community facility), PICCOLO aboard the R/V Meteor in the Atlantic, and S2noCliME studying winter precipitation in Steamboat Springs, CO. Recently, I completed my masters at CSU looking at how convection organizes in African Easterly Waves (disturbances that often serve as seeds for hurricanes), using observational data.
Now, as a Ph.D. student and NSF Graduate Research Fellow, my research focuses on understanding convective organization in the Atlantic Ocean using observations from the Sea-Pol radar collected during the PICCOLO field campaign. Five years later, I still carry the lessons I learned from the REU, especially the importance of engaging in interdisciplinary research. I also continue to stay connected with the network I built during that experience. There is no doubt that I wouldn’t be where I am today without that first opportunity to conduct meaningful research as a first-year undergraduate—an experience I remain deeply grateful for.
