PhD student wins thesis award

Geography PhD student Lauren Burns was awarded the Graduate Schools 2025 Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award for the category of Non-traditional/Thesis. The committee noted that “Her thesis research uniquely blended disciplinary expertise in meteorology along with the science of teaching ale learning to make a substantial and novel contribution to meteorology and geoscience education”

A summary of Lauren’s work is below:

Meteorology coursework relies on students developing and applying spatial thinking skills, which are important because atmospheric processes and phenomena are inherently four-dimensional. This study characterized how meteorology majors developed spatial thinking skills as they progressed through the curriculum by analyzing performance on a regularly administered multiple-choice test. Spatial thinking improved the most in the middle of the curriculum and small improvements were found each semester in an important skill supporting weather map interpretation known as disembedding, though this was also the weakest skill for all students across the program. 

Congratulations Lauren!