July URECA Researcher of the Month Explores the Dynamics of Severe Storms

Kenny Gregory - the URECA researcher of the month for July - is a rising senior, majoring in atmospheric and oceanic sciences, who transferred to Stony Brook in Fall 2024 after doing coursework in mathematics and physics at SUNY Polytechnic and coming to the realization that he wanted to specialize in meteorology.

In his first semester at Stony Brook, he took Introduction to Atmospheric Sciences, taught by Professor Michael French from the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. Gregory continued to have conversations and follow-up with his professor about his interest in researching weather radar and severe storms, and observational weather analysis.

Gregory's advice to fellow students interested in research is to "Reach out to professors. Many of them are happy to talk about their work and are open to accepting undergraduate students to help them carry out their research projects."

After doing much recommended reading on the topic of supercell dynamics and developing foundational knowledge in the field, Gregory began doing research with French earlier this spring. He is investigating "The Impact of Cell Mergers on Radar Updraft Proxies in Supercell Thunderstorms" as a participant in the SUNY SOAR program and is particularly interested in the effect of these storm collisions on the formation of tornadoes.

Gregory will be presenting his findings at the Summer Symposium, a poster event on July 31, which will include more than 100 participants from various undergraduate summer research programs, including SUNY SOAR, AI Innovation and Diffusion REU, Explorations in STEM, Oracle, Simons STEM Scholars and Velay Scholars.

On campus, Gregory has been active in the meteorology club. He plans to pursue graduate studies in meteorology.

Read the full interview with URECA Director Karen Kernan.