Climate

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.

Michael Hayes is an applied climate scientist in the School of Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His research and outreach efforts concentrate on drought risk management strategies, as well as assisting society to understand and prepare for climate variability and extremes. Hayes served as director of the National Drought Mitigation Center from 2007 to 2016. In that capacity, he studied drought monitoring, impact assessment and planning methodologies; and he assisted local, state, tribal, and federal officials with drought planning and mitigation. Hayes has conducted drought workshops and conferences around the world and is a widely published researcher. Updated 12/7/23

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.

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.