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Department: Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

Keah Schuenemann

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Keah Schuenemann, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Her areas of expertise include climate change, Greenland, climate, sea ice, and weather. She teaches Dynamic Meteorology, Synoptic Meteorology, Global Climate Change, and Physics and Chemistry for Elementary Education Majors.

Schuenemann has taught at MSU Denver since 2010 and is the director of the General Studies program. She has co-authored several papers, including “Synoptic Forcing of Precipitation Over Greenland: Climatology for 1961–99” and “Changes in Synoptic Weather Patterns and Greenland Precipitation in the 20th and 21st Centuries.” Schuenemann studies the large-scale weather around the Greenland Ice Sheet, the effects of recent climate changes on these weather patterns, and the state of the ice sheet and its contribution to sea-level rise.

More recently, she began studying how Arctic sea-ice extent affects midlatitude weather patterns, which are potentially responsible for recent droughts and cold-air outbreaks. Schuenemann is also interested in the topic of communicating climate change, the misconceptions about climate change, and developing a pedagogy on teaching climate change based on current communicating of climate-change research. She is passionate about promoting science literacy and critical thinking in the sciences.

Schuenemann received her doctorate and her master’s in Atmospheric and Oceanic Science from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2008 and 2006, respectively, and a bachelor’s in Atmospheric and Oceanic Science from the University of Wisconsin in 2004.

David Parr

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David Parr, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of Geospatial Sciences in the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

His research interests include social and technical aspects of the GeoWeb, and using citizen science to collect and monitor data. Parr has published research articles in Transactions in GIS, Media, Culture, and War, and the Journal of Applied Geography. He has presented research internationally and at conferences including the Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, the National Council of Geographic Education, the OpenStreetMap State of the Map conference, the International Geographers Union, and the Applied Geography conference.

Parr received a doctorate in Geographic Information Sciences a masters in Geography from Texas State University.

Sam Ng

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Sam Ng, Ph.D., is a professor of meteorology at Metropolitan State University of Denver where he’s been teaching for over a decade. His research includes regional and local climate changes, mesoscale convective systems, winter weather phenomenon, rapid cyclogenesis, occlusion process, quantitative precipitation forecasting and numerical weather prediction.

Uwe Kackstaetter

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Uwe Richard Kackstaetter, Ph.D., is a professor of geology at Metropolitan State University of Denver. His expertise spans two continents from environmental testing of drinking water wells, groundwater flow modeling, site contaminant evaluations, as well as geologic and hydrologic field investigations.
As an educator, he taught in college and secondary classrooms, where he conducted numerous national and international geological field courses. Kackstaetter received the prestigious 2014 Faculty Senate teacher of the year award from MSU Denver. His current interests are in developing various practical approaches as advanced tools for the geosciences, such as automated percolation water testers, new wavelength dependent night prospecting tools, improved processes of rock and mineral thin sectioning, and clay mineral analytical processing and computations.
Kackstaetter, received his master’s in Geology from BYU, Provo and his Ph.D. in applied geology and mineralogy from the University of Würzburg, Germany.

See also http://college.earthscienceeducation.net/page2.html

Barb EchoHawk

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Barbara EchoHawk, Ph.D., is a professor of geology in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

Randi Brazeau

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Randi Brazeau, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Metropolitan State University of Denver. She teaches courses in environmental and water resources. Brazeaus areas of expertise include water quality, premise plumbing water quality, water contamination/spill events, water resource management, stormwater, erosion control/construction and water.

Brazeau received her Ph.D. in civil and environmental engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 2012, a master’s degree in 2006 and a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Florida in 2005.

Antonio C. Bellisario

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Antonio Bellisario’s academic training is at the intersection of the fields of International Developing Planning and Environmental Geography. Current research and writing projects are at the crossroads between sustainable development (understood as a mechanism that protects ecologies while at the same time expands socio-economic equity) and the politics of resource management.

At a personal level, what drives his research agenda is his willingness to seek out opportunities for research collaboration and a strong desire to bring these experiences to the classroom to reach students. Bellisario’s regional specialization is South America, with a focus on Chile.

His early research and publications have been focused on the topic of land politics centering on the social contestation about farming and food production in Chile. In this research and publications, he has analyzed the political competition from organized non-governmental groups and political parties in society to shape the planning actions and policies of government.

As for his current research, Bellisario is working on four projects. The first project is an assessment of water resources and the impact of agricultural and mining activities in the water budget of the Aconcagua river basin in Central Chile. The second project is the ongoing collaborative analysis on the urban experience and urban popular culture during the Allende socialist government in Chile. The third project investigates the evolution of land use patterns in Chile, with a longitudinal study of a sample of farms from a rural municipality to track agricultural transformations (he and his team have a working draft for publication). The fourth project is a collaboration with Marco Marquez and Rodrigo Contreras (both professional planners practicing in Chile) that critically analyzes, with the use of key case studies, the effectiveness of territorial planning instruments in Chile.

Tom Bellinger

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Thomas R. Bellinger, Ph.D., is an adjunct professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

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