Kerrie Geil

Title: Associate Research Professor
Time at GRI: 2 years
Hometown: Columbia, MD

Q: What is your academic background?
My PhD and MS degrees are in Atmospheric Sciences and my BS is in Environmental Science. I have expertise in global and regional climate modeling as well as how to evaluate, interpret, and apply model data in real world contexts, such as in climate adaptation planning processes.

Q: What are your research interests?
My primary research interest is applied climate science, particularly, conducting analyses to determine which climate models are the most appropriate sources for assessing future regional climate change and supporting climate adaptation decision making. I enjoy collaborating with researchers and decision makers to develop climate change information that can help preserve human life, property, businesses, and ecosystems into the future.

Q: Who inspired you to pursue the career you have today?
It’s a combination of great teachers, bad bosses, and uninteresting jobs, as well as a strong desire to pursue answers to my own scientific questions and an interest in weather and climate since childhood that got me here.

Importantly, I had a particularly amazing high school physics teacher who made science feel fun and attainable, and instilled a lot of confidence in me. However, the real turning point was due to my experience of 6 years working for a few engineering companies after undergrad. My inquisitiveness, desired level of work independence, and need for meaningful work was not a great fit in the corporate world, which led me to apply to graduate school and pursue a career in applied science research.

Q: What has been your favorite project while working at GRI?
This year I developed a “Python learn-by-doing” workshop to teach USDA Agricultural Research Service scientists intermediate Python programming skills through useful climate science analyses. We used multiple datasets to calculate climate change indicators, look at climate trends, and investigate the impacts of El Nino/La Nina on global precipitation and temperature.

Q: What is the coolest thing you are working on right now?
Right now I’m collaborating with the Week’s Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve around one aspect of their ecosystem management practices. We are investigating whether regional climate change may affect the weather conditions needed to ignite prescribed fires safely and efficiently.

Q: What is something most people don’t know about you?
If I hadn’t chosen science I would have chosen art school.

Q: What kinds of hobbies and interests do you have outside of work?
I have a vegetable garden obsession and have also started collecting fruit trees. There’s just something about watching a seed sprout, grow, and eventually produce something for your dinner plate that I will never get over- plants are amazing!