Bio

Dr. Lazarus is a Full Professor in the Department of Ocean Engineering and Marine Sciences at the Florida Institute of Technology (FIT). His undergraduate degree in Meteorology was at Florida State University where he worked, under the supervision of Dr. James O’Brien, digitizing sea-surface stress maps for an early El Nino forecast system. He has extensive modeling and data assimilation experience that originates from his PhD work at the University of Oklahoma and he has authored or co-authored more than three dozen peer-review articles in a wide range of subjects including analysis/data assimilation, tropical cyclone winds (and waves), and transient luminous events. Much of his funded work has been tailored to operational meteorological applications (i.e., near real-time forecasting).  He recently completed work on his second (NOAA/NWS) Collaborative Science, Technology, and Applied Research (CSTAR) grant that combines hydrodynamic modeling and atmospheric forcing in an effort to improve surge and wave forecasts in a local estuary and is now working on a two new projects including the installation of a coastal wave/current radar and a NIST funded wind-loading project with engineering faculty. He has considerable experience working with undergraduate students as part of a summer Field Projects (FP) and currently on independent research projects at Florida Tech.  The FP integrates science and fieldwork for Meteorology, Environmental Science, and Oceanography undergraduate students. Over the past 20 years Dr. Lazarus has coordinated a wide range of FP research projects involving IR skin temperatures (beach sand), wind profiling (with the FIT lidar), renewable energy (wind and solar), sea breeze, lake modeling, etc. He is currently advising a small undergraduate “lightning” research group.