A Mississippi State University meteorologist will do research in Poland this summer, thanks to a prestigious Fulbright grant.
Jamie Dyer, a professor in the MSU Department of Geosciences will travel to Lublin, Poland on June 2 to conduct research at Maria Curie Sktodowska University (UMCS) as the recipient of a Fulbright Specialist Grant. While in Poland, he will collaborate with faculty on research dealing with hydrometeorology and the assessment and prediction of climate extremes. Dyer previously spent one year at UMCS as a visiting professor in 2015. On this trip, Dyer will spend six weeks in Poland.
“The reason they got me at the university over there, is they need someone with my expertise to help with collaboration and help with their students,” Dyer said. That’s what this Fulbright program is all about, finding American professors to help with an expertise that their university is missing.”
Dyer described the research he would be involved in at UMCS.
“What it is is precipitation and water on the surface, so how does the surface interact with the atmosphere to modify weather patterns?,” Dyer said. “Basically the water cycle between the surface and the atmosphere.”
He said he became interested in conducting research in the hydrometeorology area in Poland after noticing similarities between weather patterns in Poland and north Mississippi during his visiting professorship at UMCS.
“It’s very agricultural,” Dyer said. “You’ve got a city, a small town, and then fields all around it. Even though it’s at a higher latitude, they have similar weather patterns to us. It’s really hot in the summer, much colder in the winter, but they’ve just got interesting weather, and they’ve got some patterns that the researchers over there can’t really describe. When I was over there the first time, I said ‘well, some of these patterns look familiar. It’s what we get in Mississippi and the southeastern U.S. After our conversations, I said ‘I think I have something I can provide.’”
Dyer emphasized how competitive the Fulbright grants were, and said he hoped his work in Poland would be the beginning of further research collaboration. He also said the award brought more legitimacy to the meteorology and other geoscience programs at MSU.
“They’re pretty excited about it,” Dyer said. “It brings a lot of prestige to the department, to the college, the university. I mean, Fulbrights are, like I said, pretty competitive and when somebody gets one, you know, go work for someone overseas, they’re going to bring collaboration and expertise back.”
Dyer has been on faculty at MSU since 2005, and holds degrees from A.S. Young Harris Junior College and the University of Georgia.
At least two other Fulbright awards have been netted at MSU this year, going to associate professor of computer science Cindy Bethel and senior biological engineering major Jesse Smith.