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2013 Bryson Scholarship Event
The Nelson Institute Center for Climatic Research held its third annual Reid Bryson Scholarship competition in April as part of the Nelson Institute Earth Day Conference. There were 18 student applicants from a diverse set of departments and centers across the University of Wisconsin-Madison, including the Center for Climatic Research (CCR), the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE), and the Departments of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Biochemistry, Microbiology, Geography, Chemistry, Genetics, and Life Sciences Communication. This rich variety captures the interdisciplinary nature of Professor Reid Bryson’s studies and will inspire other students.
This year we offered two separate scholarships to recognize the top graduate and top undergraduate students. The winner of the 2013 Reid Bryson Graduate Scholarship of $1,000 was Katie Holman of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and CCR. Katie is finishing her Ph.D. and will begin a postdoc in our center this summer. Her poster, "Influence of the background state on Rossby wave propagation into the Great Lakes basin based on reanalysis data and model simulations," was based on her doctoral research under the guidance of Dr. Michael Notaro in CCR. Her project finds that precipitation over the Lake Superior basin is correlated year-round with transient Rossby waves emanating from Pacific Ocean source regions.
The winner of the 2013 Reid Bryson Undergraduate Scholarship of $750 was Cora Betsinger for her poster, "Proteomics, Mass Spectrometry, and the Changing Biosphere of Ancient Troy". A double major in Biochemistry and Genetics, Cora presented a fascinating interdisciplinary study on how the lives of ancient Trojans were impacted by the changing geomorphology of the region as affected by climate change, based on analysis of chemical residue from ancient pottery fragments.
In addition to these winning posters, the scholarship competition attracted an interesting and diverse range of research topics from across the UW campus, including:
- Paleoenvironmental history
- Aerosol indirect effects on climate
- Biomass burning interactions with clouds
- Emissions impacts on U.S. air quality
- Media coverage of climate change
- Climate change impacts on human healths
- Stratosphere-troposphere exchanges
Thanks to the generosity of our supporters, we will be awarding another Reid Bryson Scholarship in 2014 to worthy University of Wisconsin-Madison students.