Summer training helps student sharpen climate change research goals

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — For Sierra Hill, a recent trip to Indiana helped bring the next phase of a climate science career into focus.

Hill, a master’s degree student in the Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science at Penn State, spent two weeks at FluxCourse, an intensive training program focused on measurement, synthesis and modeling of land-atmosphere carbon, water and energy fluxes. The course helps participants track how things like carbon move through the environment.

The program introduces participants to the theory and practice behind eddy-covariance science, a key technique in helping to understand climate change and earth-atmosphere interactions. The training, which brought together early-career professionals and field experts from across the globe, focused on instrumentation, data analysis and modeling.

By the end of the training, Hill’s group had completed a small research project examining different filtering techniques based on footprint geometry, wind direction and seasonality.

Hill returned to campus with new technical knowledge, fresh research questions and a clearer sense of how the thesis work could grow.

“I think in five or 10 years, I will look back and remember those two weeks as a pivotal moment in my career,” Hill said.

Hill said the experience was especially valuable because it connected directly to Penn State research.

Hill works with Kenneth Davis, a professor of atmospheric and climate science, a partnership that began when Hill participated in the Penn State Climate Sciences Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program in 2024 while earning a degree in meteorology from Texas A&M University.

Hill said the training provided new insight into operating the research group’s flux tower in Baltimore, Maryland, and into processing data for submission to the AmeriFlux repository, where measurements are made openly available to other researchers.

Hill, who wants to be a science educator, also came back with a “laundry list” of ideas to investigate.

“It has only been a few weeks, so I don’t have any answers, but I do have a lot of ideas, and I hope they result in some cool conclusions,” Hill said

Finding a research path

Hill found Penn State — and the REU that launched her research ambitions — at Texas A&M. A key influence was Christopher Nowotarski, a Penn State alumnus and associate professor in Texas A&M’s meteorology department, who often spoke highly of Penn State’s program.

Hill said the REU offered exactly the kind of summer opportunity that could also serve as a possible path to graduate school. Hill worked with Davis’ research group, which included then graduate students Helen Kenion and Jason Horne, now both Penn State alumni.

But when the REU ended, Hill wanted to dive deeper and asked Davis for more time.

The research was extended another year and helped Hill earn a spot in Davis’ research group. During that time, Hill expanded the work, presented it at the 105th American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting and contributed to a research article now being prepared for a peer-reviewed academic journal.

Driven by curiosity

What draws Hill to the research is the complexity of atmospheric science itself.

Because the field involves so many interacting processes, researchers often have to simplify some phenomena to fit the limits of computing power and modeling systems. Hill said those gaps are often the most compelling part of the job.

“I really enjoy learning and fixing things,” Hill said. “Every time I have come across one of these simplifications or areas that have yet to be comprehensively studied, it astounds me that an answer has yet to be found.”

Hill hopes that answering some of those questions can also help researchers in other fields tackle problems of their own.

In flux science, one major challenge is accurately calculating the energy budget of ecosystems. Flux towers measure variables that help scientists estimate the energy moving into and out of a local system. In theory, those numbers should balance. In practice, they often do not.

“That is a problem because energy cannot be created nor destroyed,” Hill said.

For Hill, that mismatch points to processes scientists still do not fully understand or account for. Solving those gaps matters because flux measurements help researchers determine how much carbon dioxide forests and other ecosystems absorb. Across regions and continents, those estimates become critical for understanding global carbon cycling and climate change.

“Working on issues like this, that are societally relevant, makes me feel proud,” Hill said. “I am able to do something that I love while helping the world, and that is a job I wouldn’t give up for the world.”