Heather Holbach participates in FAMU 10th Biennial NOAA EPP/MSI Education and Science Forum – Hurricane Research Division

Hundreds of undergraduate and graduate student scientists recently gathered at Florida A&M University (FAMU) in Tallahassee for the 10th Biennial National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Educational Partnership Program with Minority-Serving Institutions (EPP/MSI) Education and Science Forum. The EPP/MSI Program is NOAA’s largest investment in post-secondary education and future workforce development with thousands of students having gone through the program in the last 20 years. The Forum is designed to promote career opportunities for STEM graduates in the public, private, and academic sectors.

Heather Holbach presented an invited talk, “Hunting Hurricanes for Research with NOAA/AOML’s Hurricane Research Division,” providing a brief overview of HRD’s mission and annual hurricane field program.  She discussed some of her own work using data collected during the field program and her journey to working with NOAA.  “The Forum was really focused on the students, so I thought it would be helpful for them to see how they can get involved with NOAA,” said Holbach.

She also participated in the student presentation awards judging. “This was a great opportunity to learn more about the broad range of topics students from Minority Serving Institutions are researching and it was great to be exposed to the diversity of backgrounds the students came from.  It made for a great environment to learn from the variety of experiences all of the attendees have had and illustrated why it’s so important to have diversity in the workplace”

For more information, contact aoml.communications@noaa.gov.