Oswego State Student Meteorology

Dr. Yvette Richardson is a Professor of Meteorology at Penn State University and is the Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, where she oversees a center devoted to supporting student success. Dr. Richardson's research focuses on understanding severe storms through both numerical modeling and observations. Her numerical modeling studies investigate the influence of temporal and spatial variations in environmental wind and/or temperature profiles on storm strength, rotational properties, and longevity. Her observational work focuses on understanding storm rotation, in particular tornado genesis and maintenance, using mobile radars and other instruments. Dr. Richardson was a principal investigator in the International H2O Project (IHOP) and served as a steering committee member and principal investigator for the second Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment (VORTEX2). She served as the chair of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) President's Advisory Committee on University Relations (PACUR), as an editor of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) journal Monthly Weather Review, as an elected Councilor for the AMS, as the Planning Commissioner for the AMS, and as the chair of the AMS Committee on Severe Local Storms. She currently serves on the UCAR Board of Trustees and the Advisory Council for the European Severe Storms Laboratory. She earned her M.S. and Ph.D. in Meteorology from the University of Oklahoma and her B.S. in Physics from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. She has been a professor at Penn State since 2002 and is an AMS Fellow.