Wagner Award for Women in Atmospheric Sciences
RECOGNIZING GRADUATE WOMEN IN THE ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES SINCE 1998
Dr. Peter B. Wagner, an atmospheric scientist who had been a faculty member at the Desert Research Institute since 1968, was killed in 1980 in a plane crash while conducting cloud and precipitation research with three other DRI scientists.
In 1981, Ms. Sue Wagner — former Nevada Gaming Commissioner, longtime Nevada legislator, the first woman to be elected Lieutenant Governor of Nevada, DRI employee, and widow of Dr. Wagner — established the Peter Wagner Memorial Endowment to provide promising graduate students in DRI’s Atmospheric Sciences Program with a cash award to further their professional careers. In 1998, Ms. Wagner extended that opportunity nationally and specifically for women by creating the Peter B. Wagner Memorial Award.
The Wagner Endowment provides annual support for the Peter B. Wagner Memorial Award for Women in Atmospheric Sciences and the Peter B. Wagner Medal of Excellence for DRI scholars in the early stages of career development. DRI appreciates Ms. Wagner and her family for their continued support.
The Peter B. Wagner Award is a competitive national honor that recognizes a U.S. woman pursuing a graduate education in the atmospheric sciences who has published an outstanding academic paper. The Wagner Award is the only such honor for graduate women in the atmospheric sciences and provides a $1,500 award.
DR. PETER B. WAGNER
“The Peter B. Wagner Memorial Award came at an important time in my life, as I had recently graduated with my Ph.D. and was unsure of myself and whether or not a fulfilling career in science was really an option for me. The knowledge that my work was being recognized by others completely away from my own research circle was a huge psychological boost for me. I pursued postdoc openings with more confidence, including applying for a National Research Council postdoctoral fellowship that came through. This allowed me to spend three years at the then NOAA Environmental Technology Laboratory in Boulder, CO. From there, I moved into a faculty position at the University of Miami 14 years ago. It is not an exaggeration to say that the Award was a game-changer for me, in terms of helping me to see myself as a real scientist.” —PAQUITA ZUIDEMA, 1999 WINNER
“The Wagner Award came at a pivotal time in my career, when I was transitioning from PhD to postdoc. This recognition was a huge boost to my self esteem and helped give me the confidence that I could accomplish great things as a scientist!” – LAURA KREIDBERG, 2015 WINNER
APPLICATION INFORMATION
Eligibility
To be eligible, applicants must be pursuing a Masters or Ph.D. in a program of atmospheric sciences or a related field at a university in the United States as of the application deadline date. Applicants must submit a paper based on original research directly related to the identification, clarification, or resolution of an atmospheric or climatic problem.
Selection Criteria
The Selection Committee is composed of faculty from the Atmospheric Sciences Graduate Program. Papers will be evaluated based on the following content areas:
- Originality of ideas expressed and presentation of concept;
- How well the subject matter relates to real-world atmospheric or climatic problems or their resolution; and
- How well the research is defined by the introduction, methods, results, and conclusions of the manuscript.
An entry into this competition can be based on a manuscript that has been either submitted, accepted for publication, or appeared in press within the past 12 month before the application deadline. Authors are encouraged to address broader impacts of their work for the field of atmospheric sciences. Manuscripts submitted for consideration for this award should be a report of work done primarily by the applicant. The applicant should be the first author but not necessarily the single author. The submitted manuscript should be in a form acceptable for publication in a scientific journal. Length should be no more than 15 pages of double-spaced text, exclusive of figures, title page, and references using minimum 12-point font. Reprints of published papers will be accepted if it appeared in press within the past 12 months. Submitted manuscripts will be reviewed by the Award Selection Committee.
Contact:
Dr. Vera Samburova
Chair of the Selection Committee
Wagner Award for Women in Atmospheric Sciences
e-mail: vera.samburova@dri.edu
Deadline:
May 27, 2025
An applicant should submit a PDF file of the full manuscript and a cover letter describing her graduate program of study by email to Vera Samburova vera.samburova@dri.edu.
SUE WAGNER
Sue Wagner is an advocate for women’s rights and was the first woman to be elected lieutenant governor of Nevada. To honor her legacy, as well as her husband Peter B. Wagner, she created the Wagner Award for Women in Atmospheric Science.
Every year, Ms. Sue Wagner welcomes a new award recipient to her home.
Each awardee is invited to DRI to give a scientific seminar and attend a traditional dinner with Ms. Wagner and the Wagner Award committee.
RECENT WAGNER AWARD WINNERS
2024: CATHERINE ‘CASEY’ IVANOVICH
DEPARTMENT OF EARTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Her winning paper: Stickiness: A New Variable to Characterize the Temperature and Humidity Contributions toward Humid Heat”
2024: Casey received her Ph.D. from Columbia University’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences in July 2024. She is a climate scientist interested in the physical and social drivers of climate variability and change. She is passionate about investigating the dynamics and impacts of climate extremes, as well as communicating scientific concepts in accessible and engaging ways for the public. Her award-winning study untangles the distinct contributions of temperature and humidity toward heat extremes. She introduced a new variable called “stickiness” to help identify the primary driver of a given extreme humid heat event, which increases the risk of health impacts to communities by inhibiting the cooling impacts of sweat. Casey is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, where she is investigating how land surface type constrains the influence of surface moisture on dry versus humid heat extremes around the world.
2023: ANDREA GORDON
SCHOOL OF METEOROLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA
Her winning paper: “Sensitivities of Cross-Tropopause Transport in Midlatitude Overshooting Convection to the Lower Stratosphere Environment”
2023: Andrea is currently a third-year Ph.D. student in the School of Meteorology at the University of Oklahoma. She is a member of the Convection, Chemistry, and Climate (CCC) Research Group, led by Dr. Cameron, studying the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS). She earned her B.S. in Meteorology from the University of Oklahoma in 2021, while working as an undergraduate researcher with the CCC group. Andrea’s research focuses on overshooting convection and dynamic meteorology (specifically stratosphere-troposphere exchange) and utilizes idealized modeling simulations and field campaign observations. She participated as a lead forecaster and flight planner in the NASA Dynamics and Chemistry of the Summer Stratosphere. (DCOTSS) field campaign. Her future work will focus on exploring stratosphere-troposphere exchange in tropical cyclones.
2022: LILY HAHN
DEPARTMENT OF ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
Her winning paper: “Seasonality in Arctic Warming Driven by Sea Ice Effective Heat Capacity”
2023: Lily received her Ph.D. in 2023 from the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington, where she was advised by David Battisti and Kyle Armour. Her thesis investigated the mechanisms of polar-amplified warming — a pattern of faster warming in polar regions than any other region of the planet in response to rising greenhouse gas concentrations. Her research has leveraged idealized and comprehensive climate models to examine key asymmetries in polar warming: why does Arctic warming outpace Antarctic warming, why does the Arctic warm more in winter than in summer, and what are the causes and implications of seasonal asymmetry in poleward heat transport under increased CO2 forcing? Lily was recently awarded the NOAA Climate & Global Change Postdoctoral Fellowship to study the impacts of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation on global and high-latitude warming. She is excited to start this postdoctoral fellowship with mentors Nick Lutsko and Ian Eisenman at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in Fall 2023.
2021: YI ZHANG
PROGRAM OF ATMOSPHERIC AND OCEANIC SCIENCES (AOS), PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
Her winning paper: “Projection of tropical heat stress constrained by atmospheric dynamics”
Yi Zhang is a PhD student in the Program of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOS) at Princeton University. Her graduate program trains students to apply theory and numerical modeling skills to societally relevant problems in climate, atmosphere, and ocean research. Yi’s research focuses on tropical atmospheric dynamics and she studies a variety of topics from precipitation to heat stress in the Earth’s tropics.
2020: ANNE BARKLEY
DEPARTMENT OF ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES, UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI’S ROSENSTIEL SCHOOL OF MARINE AND ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCE (RSMAS)
Her winning paper: “African biomass burning is a substantial source of phosphorus deposition to the Amazon, Tropical Atlantic Ocean, and Southern Ocean”
2021: Anne Barkley is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS) in the laboratory of Professor Cassandra Gaston. Her degree track is within the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, and she studies atmospheric aerosols and their impact on climate. Specifically, Anne’s research focuses on nutrients associated with aerosols that can deposit into ecosystems, which can stimulate primary productivity and sequester carbon dioxide in the ocean and terrestrial biosphere. Understanding and quantifying the transport and amount of nutrients in aerosols is therefore important to accurately predict atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and quantify the impact of aerosols on climate. Anne’s thesis focuses on making physicochemical measurements on aerosol filter samples collected in Cayenne, French Guiana, which is a coastal field site located on the northeast corner of the Amazon Rainforest. This site is unique because it receives long-range transported African dust and smoke (biomass burning) in the boreal winter and spring — both aerosol sources are thought to provide important nutrients that fertilize the Amazon rainforest. Anne’s research builds on decades of research studying African dust transported to the Caribbean and South Florida, but with a new focus on African dust transport to South America.