UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Jon Nese, teaching professor and associate head of the undergraduate program in meteorology and atmospheric science in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences (EMS), is the recipient of the 2025 Undergraduate Program Leadership Award.
The award recognizes a faculty member who has demonstrated exemplary leadership benefiting a Penn State undergraduate degree program. Specifically, it recognizes those individuals who have major responsibilities for the delivery of undergraduate education within a unit and who are providing leadership that has transformed or revitalized the undergraduate program in some way.
Nominators said Nese reshaped the undergraduate program in numerous ways to the benefit of current and future undergraduate students. He works closely with the Undergraduate Academic Programs department committee, leads program curriculum proposals and works with faculty to implement these changes.
For one notable change, nominators said, Nese worked closely with other faculty members to create a new climate science option for the degree. He also worked with the Faculty Senate to roll out the new option.
“This new option will increase the visibility of climate in the department and provide students with a clear path toward these important career opportunities,” a nominator said.
Nese also recognized the need to strengthen the computer programming skills of students and worked to change that.
“Under Jon’s leadership, the department assessed the computer programming ability of students and piloted an introductory programming course specifically designed to teach coding in the context of meteorological problems,” a nominator said. “The pilot was a resounding success, as assessed by performance in later courses, and resulted in a permanent course that sets students up for success in this absolutely vital area.”
The course is offered to first-year students and nominators said it offers an “enormous benefit of providing students with the skills needed for meteorology internships and research, allowing students to obtain these important opportunities much earlier than before.”
Nese also worked with another faculty member to create a professional development course.
In this course, nominators said, students develop a better understanding of the range of diversities and commonalities in the atmospheric sciences, the value of improving presentation and writing skills, the importance of developing professional references and networks and strategies for applying to graduate schools and searching for a job.
“Students also learn emotional intelligence, entrepreneurship, financial literacy, career planning, summer opportunities to build their resumes, and how to identify and deal with harassment in the workplace,” a nominator said. “This carefully designed course has been very impactful in setting students up for career success.”
Recruiting great students is also a goal for Nese. He worked with an EMS recruiter to reach out to thousands of students interested in science and invited them to explore the major. He also started a letter-writing campaign for faculty to connect with accepted students of similar interests.
“This initiative demonstrates the personal touch students can expect in the meteorology program despite it being one of the largest programs in the country,” a nominator said.
Nese also oversees the Weather and Climate Communications Group, which is responsible for the production of the department’s weekday weather magazine show “Weather World.” He provides regular features for the show on Wednesday evening in a segment called WxYz (WeatherWhys), and in 2015, he was awarded a Mid-Atlantic Emmy for WxYz with his colleague Marisa Ferger. He also occasionally hosts the show and interviews Penn State faculty and prominent alumni.