People

Leadership Team

Dr. Carlos M. Carrillo (Sr. Research Associate) works on drought risk and drought predictability using dynamical models like WRF, CAM, and CESM and novel statistical techniques. Dr. Carrillo’s interests and publications on climate variability span at least three orders of magnitudes spanning short-term weather forecasts to multi-millennial last millennium climate simulations. He also serves as the ECRL lab manager and de-facto chief scientist.

Dr. Danielle Eiseman (Communications Specialist) is a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Communication, where she teaches risk communication, science communication and writing, and environmental communication. Danielle’s reasearch examines climate change communication strategies with a particular focus on encouraging pro-environmental behavior change. She also contributes to inter-disciplinary research on policy, planning and resilience at the community level. Recently she has provided guidance to the Scottish Government on engaging the public in its climate change policies and is a co-author on the forthcoming book entitled, Our Changing Menu: What climate change mean to the foods we love and need.

Danielle previously held the Program Manager position at the Cornell Institute for Climate Smart Solutions, and collaborates on research for the Center for Conservation Social Sciences, and the Emergent Climate Risk Lab at Cornell University. Danielle has 10 years’ experience working in media, advertising, and public engagement, with a focus on messaging on sustainable and pro-environmental behaviors. She has developed coordinated messaging campaigns in Scotland, developed educational and promotional materials for the Scottish Government Climate Change Behavioral Research Group. Her Ph.D. is in Marketing from Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland. Danielle also holds a Master’s in Carbon Management from the University of Edinburgh, a Master’s in Marketing and Economics from DePaul University, a Bachelor’s in Chemistry from Miami University, and a degree in Culinary Arts from the Scottsdale Culinary Institute.
Contact: dle58@cornell.edu

Dr. Toby R. Ault (Assistant Prof.) received his PhD from the University of Arizona in 2011, then completed an ASP postdoc at the National Center for Atmospheric Research from 2011-2013 before joining Cornell. His research research aims to characterize drought and other climate risks across inter-annual to multi-decadal timescales using climate model simulations, historical data, statistical tools and paleoclimate information when possible. He also works closely with the Paleontological Research Institution where he is research associate on their climate science team and helps develop climate change content for NYS K12 educators.

Current Students

Marty Sullivan (PhD student & Cloud Systems Engineer) has held a wide variety of IT and Application Development positions at Cornell University since 2011. Presently, his professional focus is on Cloud Systems / Software Engineering & Consulting at the enterprise level of the university to directly support its academic mission. His projects cover a wide range of topics, including big data workflows in Digital Agriculture and leading development of Cornell’s Apps on Demand service for remote software delivery to students.
Contact: marty.sullivan@cornell.edu
http://martysullivan.com/

Frank Telles (CALS Research Fellow, NAU PhD Student) Frank is a visiting PhD student from NAU and a CALS Research Fellow. He is passionate about contributing to K-12 – university education pedagogy & andragogy (educating adults) with focus on the Next Generation Science Standards, Sustainability Development Goals, traditional ecological knowledge, and inspiring the next generation of Earth, Air, and Water protectors. His interests are paleoclimatology, air quality, and climate change using dust particulate matter from regional geomorphology in the Colorado Plateau and how to connect scientific research to education research in teaching and learning at the public middle and high school levels, specifically Title I. His project focus for my PhD is about the dust-drought cycle of the Colorado Plateau (last 3,000 years and present) and how that is translated into a curriculum aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards and State Science Standards.

Website: https://sites.google.com/nau.edu/franklyn-telles/home?authuser=0 

Alumni

Dr. Swatah Snigdha Borkotoky (PhD 2023), Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Virginia
Dr. Colin Evans (PhD 2022), Postdoctoral Associate, Northeast Regional Climate Center
Marc Alessi (MS 2021), PhD Student at Colo. State, Ft. Collins
Dr. Jeff Sward  (PhD 2021), Senior Associate in Carbon-Free Electricity at RMI
Dr. Stéphanie Arcusa (PhD 2020 – NAU), Assistant Prof., ASU, Center for Negative Carbon Emissions
Dr. Xiaolu Li (PhD 2019), Postdoctoral Scholar at Penn State, Dept. of Ecosystem Sci. & Management
Dr. Brandon Benton (PhD 2019), Senior Software Engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Dr. Dimitris Herrera Hernandez (PhD 2018), Assistant Prof., UTK, Dept. of Geography

Research Staff:
Rick Moore (Research Support, Retired 2021)

Undergraduate Research Interns:
Tavyen Matthews (BS ’21)
Jacob Kurisko (BS ’20)
Blake Himes (MS/BS ’22)
Kush Dave (BS ’17)
Shaun Howe (BS ’16)
Dr. Zachary Labe (BS ’14)
Molly Smith (BS ’14)