UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Jim Steenburgh, professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Utah and a Penn State alumnus, will give the 2017 Lattman Visiting Scholar of Science and Society Lecture. His talk, titled “Communicating Science in the 21st Century: Personal and Political Challenges and Opportunities,” will be held from 2:30 to 4 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 6, in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences Museum on the ground floor of Deike Building. The event is free and open to the public.
Steenburgh has been a faculty member in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Utah since 1995 and served as chair from 2005 to 2011. He completed his bachelor of science in meteorology at Penn State and his doctorate in atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington.
Steenburgh’s research spans a wide range of topics in mountain weather and climate. He led the numerical weather prediction group for the 2002 Winter Olympics held in Salt Lake City and was awarded the prestigious Outstanding Service Award from the National Weather Service. He is also the recipient of the 2016 Graduates of Earth and Mineral Sciences Achievement Award.
His book, “Secrets of the Greatest Snow on Earth,” explores mountain weather, avalanches and snow safety, and the basics of climate and weather forecasting for skiers and other snow enthusiasts.
The Lattman Visiting Scholar of Science and Society series was created to engage undergraduate students in a broad range of scholarly issues. It was endowed by friends and associates of Laurence Lattman, a geosciences educator who taught at Penn State from 1957 to 1970. During that time, he developed a geology course for non-geology majors, Geological Sciences 20: Planet Earth, which he taught to more than 24,000 students.
Lattman also served as chair of the Department of Geology at the University of Cincinnati, dean of the University of Utah’s colleges of Mines and Mineral Industries, and Engineering, and president of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. He earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from City College of New York and a master’s degree and doctoral degree in geology from the University of Cincinnati.