Congratulations to senior undergraduate Anna Kaminski on being one of seven UWM Senior Excellence in Research Award winners for the 2020-21 academic year! The Senior Excellence in Research Award (SERA) goes to a small group of seniors who have been significantly active in undergraduate research during their time at UWM and who propose a research plan for their senior year. SERA recipients meet monthly to discuss their research progress and will share their outcomes with an oral presentation at a colloquium in the spring. They also serve as ambassadors for undergraduate research in various ways including class visits, outreach events and media interviews.

Anna Kaminski is a senior at UWM and plans to graduate with a degree in atmospheric science in May of 2021. She has worked with Dr. Clark Evans since the fall of 2019. During the summer of 2018, she got the opportunity to participate in an internship in Geneva, NY studying and researching a climatology on atmospheric rivers in the northeast United States. This opportunity allowed her to continue that project in the fall of 2018. For the past year and a half, Anna has continued to pursue this project studying atmospheric rivers and created a 30 year climatology with peers and mentors from 5 different universities. Throughout the academic year of 2019-20, she has prepared an article for publication and was submitted in August 2020 with lead authorship. She was awarded a SURF award for the summer of 2020 and will be focusing on developing an algorithm to objectively identify tropical cyclones, extratropical cyclones, or a mixture of the two which is considered a hybrid. When there is a more accurate way of objectively defining cyclones, large numbers of data and images can be put into this algorithm to characterize cyclones and can be used to more effectively and efficiently conduct research regarding tropical and extratropical cyclones. Anna also actively participates in the Atmospheric Science Club and attends national conferences to present her research.