Zachary Fasnacht
Email
[protected e-mail]
Hometown
Lancaster, PA
Advisor
Dr. Anne Thompson, NASA Goddard
Academic Career
Education
B.S. in Meteorology from the Pennsylvania State University
M.S. Candidate in Atmospheric Science from the University of Maryland
M.S. Candidate in Atmospheric Science from the University of Maryland
Research
Impact of Stratospheric Intrusions on Tropospheric and Boundary Layer Composition
Evaluation of GEOS-5 and CMAQ Models on Simulating Stratospheric Intrusions
Evaluation of GEOS-5 and CMAQ Models on Simulating Stratospheric Intrusions
Background
As a young adolescent I found myself fascinated by weather and attended Penn State University's weather camp during my high
school years. I was able to follow my dream and attended Penn State University where I majored in meteorology. While at Penn
State I did broadcasting and operational forecasting for the Campus Weather Service, and in my senior year I was the Head of
Forecasting. I oversaw fellow student forecasters and provided workshops to aid students in their forecasting. During my
senior year at Penn State University, I was a teaching assistant for an introduction to meteorology class. Throughout my
undergraduate and graduate years, I participated in the national forecasting competition WxChallenge, and am currently 25th
out of 1500 forecasters in the nation. While at Penn State University, I was selected to attend a two and a half week
intensive computer science summer school program at the University of Virginia. The program was followed by a summer
internship at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center evaluating the aerosol model GOCART.
Upon completion of the internship at NASA I became intrigued in computer science applications related to environmental science
and atmospheric research and started my post graduate work at the University of Maryland. During my post graduate studies,
I work for Dr. Anne Thompson at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center exploring the impacts of stratospheric intrusions using
aircraft and satellite measurements from NASA field campaigns. Using extensive observations I have compared GEOS-5 and
CMAQ simulations to observed data to analyze the ability to model stratospheric intrusions. Currently I am working on
adjusting lateral boundary conditions in CMAQ using the MLS satellite and ozonesonde measurement to see whether the updated
boundary conditions improves CMAQ's ability to model ozone in the upper troposphere.
school years. I was able to follow my dream and attended Penn State University where I majored in meteorology. While at Penn
State I did broadcasting and operational forecasting for the Campus Weather Service, and in my senior year I was the Head of
Forecasting. I oversaw fellow student forecasters and provided workshops to aid students in their forecasting. During my
senior year at Penn State University, I was a teaching assistant for an introduction to meteorology class. Throughout my
undergraduate and graduate years, I participated in the national forecasting competition WxChallenge, and am currently 25th
out of 1500 forecasters in the nation. While at Penn State University, I was selected to attend a two and a half week
intensive computer science summer school program at the University of Virginia. The program was followed by a summer
internship at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center evaluating the aerosol model GOCART.
Upon completion of the internship at NASA I became intrigued in computer science applications related to environmental science
and atmospheric research and started my post graduate work at the University of Maryland. During my post graduate studies,
I work for Dr. Anne Thompson at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center exploring the impacts of stratospheric intrusions using
aircraft and satellite measurements from NASA field campaigns. Using extensive observations I have compared GEOS-5 and
CMAQ simulations to observed data to analyze the ability to model stratospheric intrusions. Currently I am working on
adjusting lateral boundary conditions in CMAQ using the MLS satellite and ozonesonde measurement to see whether the updated
boundary conditions improves CMAQ's ability to model ozone in the upper troposphere.