Dr. Ryan Boyles

Director and State Climatologist
135 Research III Building, Centennial Campus
Box 7236, North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7236
Telephone: 919-513-2816
Email: ryan_boyles@ncsu.edu

Ryan Boyles is a North Carolina native from Durham with undergraduate and graduate degrees from NC State University. As State Climatologist, Ryan is the chief scientist with responsibilities to develop and promote the Office's climate services for extension, research, and education of applied meteorology and climatology. Ryan supervises staff and students, assists NC state and county agencies, and interacts with a wide range of public and private sector clients to ensure development and delivery of advanced climate science and services.

As an applied climatologist, Ryan focuses on how climate data and climate science can be better used to improve monitoring and decision-making for the sectors of our society most sensitive to weather and climate impacts. In particular, Ryan has spent much of the past decade working on drought issues with the NC Drought Management Council. Ryan also spends much of his time working with the NOAA Southeast Regional Climate Center, the USDOI/USGS Southeast Climate Science Center, the Southeast Climate Consortium, and the Carolinas Integrated Science and Assessment programs. Ryan also holds an appointment as Extension Assistant Professor in the Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences where he teaches and interacts with other academic faculty and extension scientists across NCSU.

Ameenulla Syed

Associate Director / NC ECONet Manager
133 Research III Building, Centennial Campus
Box 7236, North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7236
Telephone: 919-515-1448
Email: asyed@ncsu.edu

Ameenulla Syed was born in India, where he worked for the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore with a Diploma in Sound Engineering for several years. While employed at the Institute, Ameenulla pursued a Bachelors Degree in Electronics Engineering (1981), and later completed his Masters Degree in Aerospace Engineering (Instrumentation) from the Indian Institute of Science (1997). Over the years, he has worked on various research projects and participated in national and international field experiments at various levels such as Lead Instrumentation Engineer/ co-Project Investigator. Experiments include 1) Monsoon Experiment (MONEX) 1979, 2) Experiment during Total Solar Eclipse in India 1980, 3) Genesis of Atlantic Lows Experiment (GALE) 1985-86, 4) Monsoon Trough Atmospheric Boundary Layer Experiment (MONTBLEX) 1990, 5) Vegetation and Surface Energy Balance Experiment (VEBEX) 1998, 6) Indian Ocean Experiment (INDOEX) 1997-99, 7) Bay of Bengal Monsoon Experiment (BOBMEX) 1998-99. Ameenulla has published research papers in peer-reviewed journals and authored scientific reports for different compliance and regulatory agencies.

Ameenulla began working for the SCO to modernize the NC ECONet, which currently consists of about 30 weather stations across the state, and measures parameters like soil temperature, solar radiation, and evapotranspiration, in addition to temperature, precipitation, and winds. Ameenulla serves as the SCO's instrumentation expert. He has developed an auto clean mechanism for precipitation gages, and is working on an all-season, low power precipitation sensor. As manager of the ECONet, he oversees the installation, maintenance, and improvement of weather sensors at the various sites. He also helps in implementing quality assessment and quality control procedures for this data. In the future, Ameenulla wants to expand the ECONet across NC, and continue in-house design and development of weather sensors.

Aaron Sims

Assistant State Climatologist / Environmental Meteorologist
140 Research III Building, Centennial Campus
Box 7236, North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7236
Telephone: 919-513-2101
Email: aaron_sims@ncsu.edu

Originally from Raleigh, Aaron Sims joined the Climate Office as an environmental meteorologist in 2004. Aaron designs, develops, and manages all of the computing infrastructure and modeling systems. Aaron is always striving to improve our operational capabilities and continues to develop in-house model evaluation tools. He is engaged in the development and implementation of quality control procedures and also aids our instrumentation meteorologists in ECONet site selection, installation, and maintenance. He is continually working with other staff members and students to develop new applications for agriculture and other weather-sensitive sectors. Aaron is also working to explore and build new avenues for accessing and distributing environmental data.

Ashley Hiatt

Environmental Meteorologist
141 Research III Building, Centennial Campus
Box 7236, North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7236
Telephone: 919-515-1440
Email: ashley_hiatt@ncsu.edu

Ashley Hiatt was born in Burlington, NC. In 2005, she received a B.S. in Meteorology at NCSU, with a minor in statistics. Ashley became an employee of the SCO after graduation, and was initially involved in creating statistical evaluation tools of the SCO's operational model. She has also researched climate change in NC for the Global Climate Change Commission, and worked to expand the CRONOS database to include data from various water sites (streamflow, groundwater, reservoir, etc.) across the Southeast. Ashley's main duties are to maintain the SCO website, develop decision-based support tools for climate-sensitive communities, coordinate educational outreach efforts, and assist in data retrieval services. In the future, Ashley hopes to continue work with state agencies and institutions in developing science applications.

Sean Heuser

Instrumentation Technician
132 Research III Building, Centennial Campus
Box 7236, North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7236
Telephone: 919-515-0411
Email: spheuser@ncsu.edu

Sean Heuser was born in Raleigh, NC. He received a B.S in Atmospheric Science with a minor in Mathematics from UNC-Asheville in 2005. He then completed a M.S. in Atmospheric Science from NC State in 2010. Sean's masters work involved modeling the effects of land use with regards to the glacial mass at the peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Today, Sean helps maintain the North Carolina ECONet stations as well as updating the quality control procedures for all data coming into the SCO. Furthermore, Sean is now helping with the National Mesonet Program in updating metadata for all ECONet stations. In the future, Sean hopes to begin development of regional seasonal forecasts for North Carolina and the southeastern US.

John McGuire

Environmental Meteorologist / Developer
136 Research III Building, Centennial Campus
Box 7236, North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7236
Telephone: 919-515-0412
Email: jamcguir@ncsu.edu

John was born in Chicago and grew up around Raleigh. In May 2008, he graduated from NC State with a bachelor's degree in meteorology and a mathematics minor. Hired in January 2009, John's primary role for the State Climate Office is developing and optimizing weather-based products for the SCO and the NOAA Southeast Regional Climate Center . John is heavily involved with database and system management; he also assists instrumentation meteorologists with ECONet maintenance. John's day-to-day activities includes researching, developing, and supporting server-side and client-side products designed to help other staff, students, researchers and the public. Some of his recent projects include SERCC's Climate Perspectives, data quality control monitoring interfaces, new CRONOS web mapping interfaces, and most recently gridded data visualization and mobile development.

In addition to his staff duties, John is pursuing his master's degree in Atmospheric Science as a part-time graduate student at NC State. Because of his interests in weather and computing, his graduate research focuses on the creation and evaluation of a high-resolution mesoscale reanalysis of North Carolina using WRF models. In the past, John has worked at the SCO as an undergraduate researcher creating a sea surface climatology, evaluating the peanut disease advisory product with model forecast data, and performing an analysis on the intensification of winter coastal storms for the 2005 and 2006 seasons. He is looking forward to finishing his master’s degree and continuing to work on product development that helps other meteorologists and the citizens of North Carolina.

Heather Dinon Aldridge

Applied Climatologist
138 Research III Building, Centennial Campus
Box 7236, North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7236
Telephone: 919-513-0244
Email: hadinon@ncsu.edu

Heather is a native New Englander, growing up close to Boston and attending Plymouth State University where she received a B.S. in Meteorology in May 2008. She then ventured to North Carolina to pursue an M.S. in Atmospheric Science from North Carolina State University and graduated in May 2011. During her graduate studies, she explored climate variability for crop management in the Southeast US and really embraced applied climate research through her interactions with the Southeast Climate Consortium (SECC). She also developed a decision support tool with reference evapotranspiration estimates, which was adapted for SECC’s open source version of their decision support system, AgroClimate.

In August 2011, she started working as an Applied Climatologist for the State Climate Office and currently leads the office’s interactions with the Pine Integrated Network: Education, Mitigation, and Adaptation Project, or PINEMAP. Her main duties on this project include developing a decision support system for forest landowners, presenting climate information and the impacts to forest systems through written and oral communication, and providing climate data to support PINEMAP researchers. Heather also has a passion for outreach and is currently leading the office’s outreach and engagement efforts.

Gregory Deleruyelle

Administrative Support Specialist
117 Research III Building, Centennial Campus
Box 7236, North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7236
Telephone: 919-515-1667
Email: gdeleru@ncsu.edu

Greg grew up in Fairmont, WV and is a 1999 graduate of Appalachian State University. He spent 3 years in Japan working for a Japanese company prior to his employment at NC State, which began in 2007. Greg currently serves as the HR Specialist for both the State Climate Office and The Science House.

Rebecca Cumbie

Extension Climatologist
100 Research III Building, Centennial Campus
Box 7236, North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-7236
Telephone: 919-515-3056
Email: rvcumbie@ncsu.edu

Rebecca Cumbie grew up in the town of Newport on the coast of North Carolina. There she experienced a wide variety of weather, from hurricanes to snowstorms, and developed an interest in North Carolina’s unique weather and climate. After earning B.S. Degrees in Meteorology and Applied Mathematics from NC State University in 2011, Rebecca began pursuing a M.S. in Atmospheric Science. In 2013 Rebecca began working for the NC State Climate Office as an Extension Climatologist in addition to continuing her graduate studies. Much of her current work focuses on understanding and measuring drought. Of note, she is developing an operational, high-resolution Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) product based on Multi-sensor Precipitation Estimates (MPE) to measure drought for the contiguous US. The resolution of this product is approximately 5km and has the ability to capture significant spatial variation in drought severity.

Understanding how North Carolina’s weather and climate influences the various sectors within the state, such as agriculture and natural resources, and sharing this knowledge is one of the things Rebecca finds most enjoyable about her work with the NC SCO. Previous work developing a web-based decision support tool to be used by NC Tobacco Growers to assess their risk from Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus was in line with this interest. Rebecca also interacts with the public daily by answering phone calls or emails from people interested in obtaining weather data or learning more about North Carolina’s climate. Additionally, she helps give tours of the State Climate Office and nearby ECONet stations as well as assisting in routine maintenance to ECONet stations.

Adrienne Wootten

Environmental Meteorologist

Adrienne was born in Carmel, NY but grew up in Maryland. In May 2008, Adrienne graduated from NC State University with a bachelor's degree in Meteorology and a minor in Statistics. In December 2011 she received her Master's degree in Atmospheric Science for her work on statistical downscaling of global climate models to improve seasonal precipitation forecasts in North Carolina. Adrienne has worked on evaluating the Multisensor Precipitation Estimate Data using several statistical analyses. She is currently working on several statistical analyses including implementation of, and improvements to the local seasonal forecasting through downscaling techniques.

Corey Davis

Graduate Research Assistant / Environmental Meteorologist

Corey graduated from NC State in May 2009 with a major in Meteorology and a minor in Journalism. Born in Kernersville and now living in Raleigh, Corey is a lifelong North Carolina resident who is familiar with the weather and climate of the Tarheel (and Wolfpack!) State. He has worked with the SCO since 2008 on projects including the NC-FIRST severe weather training program, a recreation climatology for the Southeast U.S., and a Local Storm Report database. Corey's work with the SCO will continue in graduate school as he pursues a Master's degree in Meteorology from NC State.

Megan Hall

Graduate Research Assistant / Environmental Meteorologist

Megan is from Jamestown, NY, but moved to North Carolina in 2004. She received her B.S. in Meteorology from NC State in May 2011 and is currently pursuing her Master's Degree from the College of Education at NC State. Her current project consists of developing a wind rose plot using R that will be implemented on the cronos database for the State Climate Office. Along with this project, Megan will be continuing to develop and adapt her previous work on the education modules for various audiences, focusing mainly on the K-12 audience. Megan is also working in collaboration with the State Climate Office and The Science House to help out with educational outreach.

Joseph Taylor

Undergraduate Assistant

Joseph Taylor was born in Kenosha, WI and grew up in Davie County, NC. He is currently pursuing two bachelor's degrees in Meteorology and Marine Science at NC State. Joe has performed many tasks for the SCO, including a precipitation evaluation between tipping bucket rain gauges and precipitation impact sensors deployed at NC ECONet stations. He has also worked to create a soil moisture prediction model using ARIMA for the purposes of quality control. Joe currently assists with data retrieval services and ECONet tower maintenance, and has begun working on updating the growing degree day tool.

Melissa Mainhart

Undergraduate Assistant

Melissa was born in Fairfax, VA and grew up in Kernersville, NC; she is currently a sophomore at NC State University pursuing a bachelor's degree in Meteorology and preparing to declare a minor in Computer Programming. Melissa has been working over the past year to develop several web products for the State Climate Office employees to generate graphs and statistics about the data service clients. She is currently working on developing a dynamic graphic that may be displayed on a rotating Weather Information System in Jordan Hall on NC State's campus. Melissa also helps with data retrieval services, and is currently learning Perl in order to help with the expansion of the PDSI coding and graphics.

Geneva Ely

Undergraduate Assistant

Geneva is from Fayetteville, NC but currently calls Raleigh home. She is a junior pursuing two bachelor's degrees in Meteorology and Environmental Sciences with a concentration in Air Quality. Her learning and research interests are in Atmospheric Chemistry and Air Quality. Geneva's current projects include expanding the current Tobacco Thrips Forecast Tool and aiding in the statistical analysis of Multisensor Precipitation Estimate (MPE) Data. She also assists in data request and ECONet tower maintenance. Previous work includes developing parts of the ECONet quality control moderation system used internally by the staff here at the State Climate Office.

James McClellan

Undergraduate Assistant

James McClellan was born in Missouri but has grown up in North Carolina. He is a senior pursuing a bachelor's degree in Meteorology with a minor in the Biological Sciences. James is currently working on creating a new web product for the State Climate Office which produces a modified PRISM temperature and precipitation map of North Carolina and the surrounding states based on data from the CRONOS database. He also assists with data request services.