UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Yvette Richardson, senior associate dean for undergraduate education and professor of meteorology in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, became the seventh in her field to earn the Nikolai Dotzek Award, the most prestigious prize in the severe weather research community.
The award, presented by the European Severe Storms Laboratory (ESSL), is given every second year in memory of ESSL’s founding father, Nikolai Dotzek, for an outstanding contribution to the science of severe storms.
Richardson is an expert in severe weather, particularly storms that produce tornadoes. ESSL said she was selected for her outstanding contributions to understanding tornadogenesis and supercell dynamics and for her immeasurable impact on science through supervising students who have gone on to develop impressive research careers of their own.
“Receiving the Nikolai Dotzek award is very meaningful to me. Nikolai was a talented scientist and wonderful person. Sadly, he passed away at a young age, but his legacy remains as other brilliant European scientists have gone on to carry out his vision,” Richardson said. “I am deeply honored to have my contributions acknowledged with the award in his name. I know there are many potential deserving recipients, so I am humbled by this award and grateful to the many teachers, mentors, collaborators and students I have had over my career. This award honors them as well.”
Richardson was a principal investigator in the International H20 Project (IHOP) with a focus on convection initiation and boundary layer processes using mobile radar data combined with other remote and in-place measurements. She served as a steering committee member and a principal investigator for the second phase of the Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment (VORTEX2). Recently, she and Paul Markowski, distinguished professor of meteorology and head of the Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science at Penn State, have collaborated on the deployment of sensors into supercell and tornadic storms.
Richardson is the first woman to achieve the honor. She and Markowski, who earned the Nikolai Dotzek Award in 2011, are two of only three academic professors to receive the award.