A number of scientists across the university study the various aspects of climate, food production and water management. Many University of Nebraska-Lincoln faculty members are fellows with the Daugherty Global Water for Food Institute, which seeks to better manage scarce resources to meet the food needs of a growing global population. Our experts also include scientists who have studied drilling cores from the Antarctic, to glean the history of ancient ice sheet behavior and to predict the future.
Bio
Deborah Bathke is Interim State Climatologist, Research Associate Professor in the School of Natural Resources, and Education Coordinator at the National Drought Mitigation Center. Bathke joined the NDMC in 2008 and has decades of experience in climatology, drought monitoring and mitigation, and atmospheric sciences. She holds degrees from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and The Ohio State University.
Bio
Michael Hayes is an Applied Climatologist and Professor in the School of Natural Resources. He arrived at University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1995 to work as a Climate Impacts Specialist for the National Drought Mitigation Center, eventually moving up as Director between 2007 and 2016. His research interests include drought risk management, climate, drought mitigation, extreme events, and other related topics.
Bio
Harwood’s research interests involve the studies of Cenozoic and Cretaceous paleoenvironments and paleoclimates of the southern high latitudes and the Antarctic continent. He says marine diatoms and other siliceous microfossils provide a record of paleoenvironmental climate change and marine productive, reflecting large-scale changes in the Antarctic ice sheet, sea ice and paleooceanographic conditions in the Southern Ocean. He serves as research director for the Andrill Science Management Office, which is the center of international and U.S. science efforts to better understand the history of past ice sheet behavior as a guide to future ice sheet response to elevated global temperatures.
Bio
Eric Hunt is an Assistant Extension Educator of Agricultural Meteorology and Climate Resilience for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Director of Weather Ready Farms. Prior to joining UNL in 2023, Hunt spent over a decade working with Verisk Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc. (AER) on a variety of different projects.