Jenni Evans, professor emerita of meteorology and atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University, passed away on April 3. She was 62 years old.
Dr. Evans began her tenure with Penn State in 1992 as an assistant professor. She achieved tenure as an associate professor in 1998 and was promoted to full professor in 2005. During her long career, she served in several key positions, including interim director of the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, acting director of the Institute of Energy and the Environment, and director of the Institute for Computational and Data Sciences. She retired in 2024.
A global leader in the field of meteorology, Dr. Evans focused her research on tropical cyclones, tropical convection, and climate change. She was particularly interested in the forecasting and predicting of tropical cyclones through numerical modeling and advanced computational techniques. Her work led to the development of the Cyclone Phase Space framework, a tool that is now widely used in tropical cyclone forecasting.
Outside of Penn State, Dr. Evans served as a hurricane meteorologist for the Florida Commission for Hurricane Loss Projection Methodology. She served as president-elect, president, and past-president of the American Meteorological Society from 2018-2020, becoming one of only five women to have led the organization.
A native of Melbourne, Dr. Evans received her bachelor’s degree and doctorate in applied mathematics from Monash University in Australia.