When Naoko Sakaeda, PhD, says she works in tropical meteorology, most people think of hurricanes and typhoons. But her area of research is much broader.
“There are different kinds of atmospheric waves that exist in the tropics that modulate or influence the areas and intensity of rainfall and cloudiness. My area is more trying to understand how such tropical atmospheric waves behave and influence cloudiness and rainfall,” she said. “These waves can affect tens of thousands of kilometers.”
Sakaeda grew up in south-east Asia, and says getting into meteorology there is very different than in the US. “In the tropics, nobody talks about the forecast,” said Sakaeda. “I wasn’t really into that.”
Instead, it was a single day of lessons, in a high-school geography class, where a teacher opted to cover the general circulation of the atmosphere. “I thought that was fascinating. One hour of that topic and I thought it was fascinating,” she said. “The fact that I grew up in the tropics got me interested in tropical meteorology in general.”
Sakaeda came to the US via the University of Washington for her bachelor's degree. Then she moved to Albany, New York for her PhD. “I’ve lived in all four time zones,” she said with a laugh.
Sakaeda came to the University of Oklahoma School of Meteorology in 2017 after working as a National Research Council postdoctoral fellow at NOAA’s Physical Sciences Laboratory (the Earth System Research Laboratory at the time) in Boulder, CO.
“After being in a national research lab… I realized and I thought that I wanted to have an additional component to my job, which was education,” said Sakaeda. “I was looking for a faculty job that allowed me to continue both research and contributing to education.”
She says in the past five years, she’s been able to fulfill both of those passions.
Under the old School of Meteorology curriculum, she taught one freshman-level course. Now, she teaches upper-level undergraduates and graduate students in an elective course on tropical meteorology and graduate-level atmospheric dynamics.
Aside from her work as a professor and researcher, Sakaeda serves on the A&GS Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity Council, and is the faculty advisor for the SoM Student Affairs Committee.
Sakaeda believes an important facet of the future of tropical meteorology will be improving the understanding of the tropical atmosphere so that long-range forecasts can also be improved.
“What I see is there are more and more data becoming available as our computational power and remote-sensing technology evolves,” said Sakaeda. “That probably means that the skills to analyze and visualize those data is going to be important to our students in the future.”
She also believes that communication will be an increased challenge for the field. “Especially as social media is becoming a very quick way of communicating. There are advantages to social media for spreading information in a convenient and quick manner. But that also means that incorrect information can spread easily”
Sakaeda encourages upcoming college students looking at the field of meteorology to take advantage of as many math and computer science courses as possible. She also encourages networking with other students, faculty, and staff. “And don’t be afraid to contact any of us if [you] face any challenges.”
As for current students, she says to take advantage of the resources that surround them, such as the career fair, the Monday Memo, and other emails full of the necessary information.
By Kathryn Gebauer
Article Published: Tuesday, June 21, 2022
