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Everything Weather Podcast
A conversational, educational, & educational weather podcast about everything weather. Exploring the world of weather, now every other Monday.
Everything Weather Podcast
A Parent's Path from Weather to Info Science with Ashley Orehek Rossi
In this episode of the Everything Weather Podcast, we talk with Ashley Orehek Rossi, a meteorologist turned STEM librarian and assistant professor at Western Kentucky University. We discuss Ashley's unique transition from the world of weather to information sciences, her educational journey, and the fascinating interplay between meteorology skills and information science methodologies. Tune in for an insightful and entertaining conversation that explores the diverse applications of meteorological expertise in the realm of information sciences.
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About the Everything Weather Podcast
A weekly podcast where we talk with people about the weather world, explore and discuss everything weather and the many things that connect to it, and have a little fun along the way. The podcast is hosted and produced by Kyle David, a meteorologist and digital science content producer based in New Jersey.
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Hello and welcome to the Everything Weather Podcast, where we talk with people about the weather world, explore and discuss everything weather, and have a little fun along the way. I'm your host, Kyle David, and today on the podcast we're excited to have Ashley Orehek Rossi. Ashley is a meteorologist turned STEM librarian and assistant professor at Western Kentucky University. Hey there, Ashley, and welcome to the Everything Weather Podcast.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Hello, Kyle. I'm glad to be here.
Kyle David:Absolutely. We're gonna have some fun talking about your transition from weather to information sciences and then also have a little fun along the way. And speaking of fun, I've got our first fun game for you. So I've got two rank these, a weather themed and a non weather themed one. We'll start off with the non weather themed one. First. Rank these cheese steak places without knowing what comes next. First up, we have berries, cheese, steaks in Louisville, Kentucky.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I have not been to that place yet. I'm gonna give it a three.
Kyle David:You've not been to that place. You can give it three. Okay.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I'll add it to my list of places to check out though
Kyle David:in my research, that was one of the highly rated ones in Kentucky, so very, there's some other ones on here.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Got it.
Kyle David:all right, next one up. This is kind of hard. I'm torn between doing one or both of them. I'll do both of them since they're synonymous with each other. Next up is two of them actually. 'cause they're known together. Pats and Gino's cheese steaks in Philly, Pennsylvania.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Gino's, I'm sorry, you go on the bottom because you're really just all flashing neon lights. That's my opinion. I will put pats at a solid two 'cause I prefer the Pats steaks.
Kyle David:Okay. So we'll put pats at number two. And then let's say if we go down to like a six spot, you put Ginos at the bottom.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah.
Kyle David:Oof.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I feel like their stakes are a little Grier.
Kyle David:I'm trying to remember the, 'cause this is a while back, I had Pats and Ginos, and I think you're right, it is a little more greasy compared to the traditional Philly cheese steaks you'd get.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah. And it's really all about the neon lights and signs that they have on the outside of that building. That's what really draws people in.
Kyle David:Hey, you know what, if you don't have some sort of enticing display, people are not gonna want to come in for it. Exactly. all right. Pat's at two. Then next up we have, pardon my cheese steak in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I in my cheese steak. You know, I lived in Knoxville for a couple years and I didn't know they existed. I'll
Kyle David:put them at a four. Okay. This is an interesting ranking so far. I know I've got two more that are more close to your hometown of Philadelphia. Next one up is John's Roast pork in Philly. Again, that's another hard one. I'm gonna put that one on a one for now. John's riding at one. Okay. So that would leave the number five spot open? I think so, yeah. So that would leave number five for yellow submarine in Maple Shade Township, New Jersey.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah, I'll probably just stick with that one at the five.
Kyle David:Really? You'd rank that one over Gina's. Just, just curious.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah. Well, I also, again, haven't been to Yellow submarine in Maple Shade.
Kyle David:Okay.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:It sounds like a good place.
Kyle David:Now, just curious, what is your go-to cheese take place?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:There were a couple delis near my hometown in the suburbs that I would go to. And What were they called? Yeah, there were a couple delis in the suburbs that I go to pretty regularly. And then there was also some that are not on that part of South Street by Pats and Gino's that I would like going to. They were up closer to Center City. Okay. And I don't have any really specific restaurants. I was like a regular at.
Kyle David:And one more cheese steak question 'cause I, I swear this is a weather podcast, is getting a cheese steak from a deli better than getting a cheese steak from at a restaurant.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I really think the delis really make the sandwich. It's just the deli atmosphere, whether it's a hot or a cold sandwich.
Kyle David:And you know what, in jersey it's the same with bagels and breakfast sandwiches. I could say that as a New Jersey local. So. It's interesting you say that the delis are, are better than the restaurants in terms of Philly cheese steaks. Yeah. But all right, now back to more weather related stuff. Rank these weather optical phenomenon without knowing what comes next.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Okay.
Kyle David:First up, we have Rainbows.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Rainbows. I really like them, but I'm gonna put them at a four just because you see them a lot.
Kyle David:Okay. that's a hot take there. I know. All right. But it might be a little strategic, so we'll see what the other ones come out at. So yeah, next up we have Sun Dogs.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Ooh. I love a good Sun dog. I always try to look for them either in like the early part of the day or the later part of the day. So I'll put those at a two.
Kyle David:Okay. Sun Dogs at two, rainbows at four. Next up we have Halos. Now I didn't really specify Sun or Moon Halo, so you go either way with it.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I like Moon Halos the best actually. So I'll. Put that out A one.
Kyle David:Wow. Okay. So moon Hales go at one. So that leaves the number three and five spots open. We'll see how these other ones come up. Next one up is the green flash.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Green flash. I wish I've seen these in person. I have not, nor will I think I ever will. I might have to put you at a five. I'm sorry. Green flash.
Kyle David:Yeah. I've yet to see one. It's so hard because you have to be like, looking right at it, like maybe with a, a lens or something. Mm-hmm. And even then, you shouldn't really be doing that. all right. Green flash and number five, even though it's way over hyped and I think that that deserves the number five rating. so that leaves the number three spot for sun pillars or moon pillars, the pillars that are up at night.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah. No, I think that's a solid three.
Kyle David:Okay. Would you, would you change anything about that list or.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:No, I'm pretty confident on that list. Okay.
Kyle David:I think that's a, that's a pretty solid list.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah. I'm sorry, rainbows, but you're still down towards the bottom.
Kyle David:Now. Just curious, would the answer have changed if it was like a double rainbow, triple rainbow, anything special like that?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah. If it was a double or more rainbow, I would put you towards the top. I like it too.
Kyle David:Okay. Solid two for double rainbow. All right, either way, that's still a solid ranking for the optical phenomenon. So that wraps up our first fun section. Now we get into a little bit about your weather story. So everybody I have on the podcast, I talk with them about their weather story and in the context of the weather business, people use the term weather story to describe what's the weather gonna be like for the day, week, month, et cetera. But on the podcast I actually talk about it as an actual story, how people got into the weather. So Ashley, tell me about your weather story and what got you interested in everything. Weather,
Ashley Orehek Rossi:what got me interested in everything weather, I feel it's kinda atypical from most meteorologists. You'll talk to everyone. Most people have a. Particular weather event or twisters is their favorite movie, blah, blah, blah. I don't, my influence actually comes from my grandparents, my step-grandmother, she and I would sit out on their front porch at their house and we'd watch that. Doesn't thunderstorms go by? She has like a little affinity. She has an affinity for the sciences because she grew up on Lake Ontario in upstate New York. So she got all the like effects note growing up. So she and I would just go out on star gaze, just wash the weather and stuff and that was really great. And then my grandfather on my other side, he was a meteorological officer in the Navy during the Korean conflict. He was stationed in Guam and got to see lots of different types of weather phenomena out there. Like he told us stories about how he had to drive a. Vehicle across Spring Forest terrain during a hurricane or typhoon, whatever it was one time. And then there was another time there was a water spout that appeared off the beach and it happened to pick up some fish that were in the water, so it rained fish on shore. That story really left a mark on my memory.
Kyle David:Wow. Okay. So I mean, everybody's talked about raining cats and dogs and frogs and fish, but your grandfather actually got to experience raining fish from a nearby water spout.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah, he did.
Kyle David:That's not, a lot of people can say that. And I'm curious, 'cause you've mentioned he's had all these different weather experiences and that kind of rubbed off on you a little bit. Is there a particular memory that stands out or a lesson from your grandfather's naval weather experiences that has influenced you to your current role?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I don't think so. I think I just was really intrigued by the things that he saw and I also wanted to try and be more attentive towards observing weather phenomena, either on the daily or just whenever I got the chance. I don't think there was really anything in particular. I was also one of those kids that watched the Weather Channel a lot when I was younger. I can still hear Jim Cantor's narrating local on the eights.
Kyle David:Yes. Or yelling about thunder snow. Or in the middle of a hurricane and just weathering all sorts of elements and stuff. And I'm curious, was he a like one of the most influential people when you were watching the Weather Channel? Or was it somebody else that really stuck out to you?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:He stuck out to me, honestly. He was just one of those figures that was always on there. Like Stephanie Abrams. I looked up to her a little bit. But yeah, nobody really in particular stood out to me. I was like, oh, this is cool. Sounds like some interesting to go into college for. And my dad pushed it too because he found the median salary on his homework. And I think at the time when I looked at colleges, it was the early 2000 tens. I think the median salary was like 90,000. He is like, oh, you should go after this job. You get a good pay rate. And it's like that's if I get up to that point ever in my life.
Kyle David:some people make that in the field. I feel like a lot of TV meteorologists get up there.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah. So again, it's just the median when you look at it statistically. So it's possible you can make more, it's possible you can make less, And then odd. And then funny enough, I actually never even stayed in meteorology. I went somewhere completely different with my career.
Kyle David:So I wanna explore that a little bit. But first, you had found out that you had some interest in the weather. I'm curious, what was the pivotal moment that made you realize, okay, I want to go study it? And then what was the pivotal moment that made you realize, okay, maybe I wanna transition somewhere else?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I don't think I had necessarily pivotal moments. It just kind of was like a feeling or a vibe that I got towards. Going to a CO one college or another. I knew I didn't wanna go to Penn State, but I did wanna stay in state when I looked at colleges, which didn't leave me many options because most people went to Penn State. I lived, I grew up in Pennsylvania. I should clarify. So I ended up picking Millersville University because it was a little closer to home than Penn State. And also I just had a thing against Penn State at the time when I was looking for colleges. Everyone I knew was a Penn Stater. Half my family was a Penn Stater. I just wanted to be different and go somewhere. I didn't think I'd know people.
Kyle David:Okay. I'm, it's interesting that most of your family were Penn Staters and you decided to go to Millersville just to be different. But what were some of the experiences that you got from Millersville that you feel like you couldn't have gotten at Penn State?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I really liked. having the smaller class sizes. Granted, I don't know how it all worked at Penn State, what their culture was like for their meteorology department, but I liked the smaller class sizes at Millersville. I liked that you got to know everyone across all the different years, whether you were a freshman to senior. There was lots of opportunities for getting involved in different facets of meteorology. So I got to tinker in broadcasting a little, in forecasting and in research, and then also some of the different, interdisciplinary subjects like emergency management. So I felt like I had an opportunity to try a little of all the major facets that people go into. For a meteorology career and I really do have to thank our, the department chair at the time it was, Dr. Rich Clark. He's very involved in literally everything a MSI did get to go on one field campaign with him on Kansas. That was really fun. I spent six weeks running around Kansas and the Great Plains.
Kyle David:That's interesting. Can you elaborate a little more on what that experience was like out in Kansas?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah, so it was a field campaign called pecan, which stood for planes elevated convection at night. So the main research question essentially was, why do strong convective thunderstorms form nocturnally? It said during the daytime because thunderstorms need sunlight and solar activity to form in the to form in general. So why were they forming in nighttime?
Kyle David:And I'm curious what were the results of that campaign experience?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:They had different theories for why. These thunderstorms formed, so it could have been low level jets that were bringing in warm, we stare up from the Gulf. There could have been convection just from surface heating throughout the day. There's also a couple of other things too. The elements escape me at this moment, but those were two. Two of the things that they explored.
Kyle David:Interesting. And I'm gonna segue a little bit into how you're transitioned into your current industry, which is more of information sciences. Was there something that you learned from that campaign out in the plains, or another experience in Millerville that made you want to transition to information sciences and you carried that over into your transition?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I think what transitioned to me out of meteorology directly is that I couldn't find my mold as a. Researcher as a broadcaster or as a forecaster. I just didn't have the knack that some forecasters have broadcasting. I felt like I couldn't get the social media presence. Also, I have an on and off relationship with social media, so I would be a bad broadcaster anyway. And then as for research, I couldn't focus on a particular topic in meteorology. 'cause some people know that they wanna go into tropical meteorology or atmospheric dynamics or polar meteorology. I just could not find that one area that I wanted to spend their rest of my life researching, 'cause you have to pick a program for graduate school to get your PhD in it. I also did not feel like committing myself to an additional six years, potentially of school.
Kyle David:And I'm curious, was it more of like you didn't know what you wanted to do, or there were so many things that you wanted to cover that it was hard to pick? Just one. I
Ashley Orehek Rossi:just, I really didn't know what I wanted to focus on, honestly. 'cause everything seemed really interesting and I like, and I guess that's why I became a librarian because I can dabble in a little bit of everything. In a sense it's hard to dabble in a little bit of everything as a meteorologist.
Kyle David:Yeah. You're kind of limited what you can dabble in, in terms of the meteorology and weather world. Like you said, ancient sciences has a lot you can do with that. And I wanna explore that a little bit and you know why you transitioned to information sciences. So what. Exactly is information sciences. And what are some of the areas that you have dabbled with that surprise you?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:So information sciences is basically understanding how people interact with information. So what draws people's eyes to particular elements on a screen? How do they go about performing a search for information? So if somebody's trying to find a recipe or trying to find how to fix an element on their laptop or some other do it yourself task, those are just some examples of what people could do. essentially information sciences is just seeing how people interact with different types of information, so then we can make things more user friendly and accessible for anybody and everybody. It also can go into understanding the steps that people take to find information. For example, I watched one of my colleagues the other week, we have a platform to log into for sitting at the reference desk. So I saw him go the most roundabout way possible to access the portal to sit at the reference desk. Whereas I have the URL memorized to navigate to the site much more quickly and then I can log in through there. So I save myself maybe 30 seconds.
Kyle David:That's a interesting. real world example that you bring up in, how people seek out information and engage with information. And before we explore a little bit, I just thought of this question. Is there a, whether information seeking habit or behavior that really surprises you? And then one maybe that doesn't surprise you?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I think one that doesn't surprise me is how quickly people see maybe different videos or different pieces of information on social media and are quick to assume that it's the worst case scenario all the time. It's really not. Some of those things could be just generated from, at least now today. Some things could be generated from ai, some things could be reused from past weather events and people are saying, oh, this is happening now when really it probably happened three years ago in a completely different location. So it's understanding the context behind some of the information visuals that you're getting.
Kyle David:I've seen that on social media where a picture from a particular weather event gets recirculated around and. I have to like, comment and say, Hey, this is not Recently, this is from, a past event. and then on the note of something that surprised you and you can connect it to the broader STEM field, what's a information seeking behavior that has surprised you in terms of weather information and STEM information that you didn't expect?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Something that surprised me. That is a great question Actually. What has surprised me, I can't pick out a particular example, but when I do teach, sometimes I do teach upperclassmen at my university and teaching them even like the most basic things about search techniques really stands out to them. And that also stands out to me that they weren't taught this previously or thought about using some of these techniques for information seeking strategies. For example, there's Boolean logic. You can use simple Boolean logic to help you find sources in the library catalog or in certain databases. And students don't think to utilize that Boolean logic there. They just think it's for. Whatever they're working on, say, in their programming code or other, or HTML
Kyle David:code or whatever. And can you elaborate a little more on what Boolean logic is and how that is applied to how people seek out information?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:So Boolean Logic helps combine some, combine terms so we can find things more efficiently. I compare them to Venn diagrams with my students. So the common ones you might see are, and or, and not, and basically is the middle portion of your Venn diagram where the, the rings intersect and it finds only things that are, that have both of those terms. The, or is basically the whole part of the Venn diagram. So you're finding things that are about either term or both terms. Then there's the knot, which is actually just the one section of the Venn diagram where it finds everything that's related to one term, but you're eliminating a particular element from that term. So I guess when you look at a Venn diagram, it's got three sections. It's only the knot focuses on. One section, one of the far, outside sections.
Kyle David:And I'm curious, 'cause you mentioned that there are some things that may, that, that have surprised. What's a underrated information seeking skill that not just students, but any listener who's listening can really use in their information seeking practices?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:One undergrad one is basically keyword building because it's good to have synonyms or similar phrases about a particular concept, so that way you can mix and match those keywords or phrases in your database searches because maybe one combination doesn't get you what you want, but you just change it, switch out a synonym or two, and you might find things that you're looking for. So I do an exercise with some of my students to help them figure out different synonyms and similar phrases for whatever concept or research question they're trying to answer. I tell them to think about, at least in my in class example, I have 'em think about maybe five or six different things and then branch off one of those subsets or subtopics into some sub subtopics.
Kyle David:Going back to our conversation, you touched upon a little bit that you're teaching a class, and we kind of introduced it a little bit in the introduction that you're a professor at the Western Kentucky University, so I kind of want to explore that a little bit more and how that came to be in your career path from transitioning from meteorology to information sciences, how did that come to be?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:To how I be ended up becoming an assistant professor and librarian at Western Kentucky University?
Kyle David:Yes.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Okay, so I alluded earlier. I went to Millersville University for my undergraduate degree. From there, I. I got a job, not in meteorology, but it was actually in pharmaceuticals. As a data analyst, I didn't like that, but I forced myself to stick it out for a year. In that time period, I actually had some major personal issues come up, so I, when I quit my job, I ended up doing a service year in the AmeriCorps and Triple C FEMA Corps program, which is kind of a joint effort between the AmeriCorps program that people are aware of, and then fema. It was like an intensive research, not research, an intensive emergency management internship where I got to live there and then also live with my colleagues or my teammates. That was really interesting and also taught me, I didn't wanna be in emergency management full time, but it allowed me to do some soul searching and during the soul searching, I reflected upon my time at Millersville when I was a student library employee, and I was a student library employee for. Eight of my nine semesters. I really liked the environment and wanted to stay, but didn't know how I could stay because typically librarians have history degrees or English degrees. I found out after I graduated from Millersville that you don't have to have a history degree or English degree. You can have a science degree or really for that fact, any degree to be a librarian. You just have to learn the information science side of it. And after I discovered this, I decided to take some time, and this was during my time between my first job and then my service years. So I wanted to make sure I went to grad school for the right reasons, and then I found some grad schools, talked with people in the program, talked with instructors, current students. When I got out of the FEMA corps, I applied for those graduate programs, so I ended up applying to Rutgers and the University of Tennessee. Ultimately, I went to the University of Tennessee because they offered me money. And then assistantship. And that was a really interesting decision because I had never been to Knoxville before in my life. So I said yes to a job and to a school that I didn't really know anything about except that they had a science librarianship trek in their information sciences program. So I packed my bags and moved blindly to Tennessee. I lived in an Airbnb for my first couple of months there because I wanted to find an apartment in a place in at least an area of town that I liked being in. Eventually, my, my now husband, he moved down with me and our dog so we could all be together. And then I, they stuck it out there for two years, which was during peak pandemic times. After I graduated, I got my first job, which was also my only job interview at a small college in Kentucky. It was called Lindsey Wilson College. It was in a very rural town. I stuck out like a sore thumb being the city. The city person that I am, and I didn't really quite fit in as well as I thought, and I kept, I stuck it out there for a little while because I wanted to get some professional experience under my belts, so that way I, when the next job came along, I could go apply for it confidently. And sure enough, a year later, my now position came up available at Western Kentucky University and I applied for it, and ultimately I got it. So here I am three years later.
Kyle David:Time flies when you're having fun. And you said you blindly moved from, at the time, Pennsylvania to Tennessee and you also then moved to Kentucky. I'm curious, what's the biggest weather and non weather related thing that you've had to adjust to in your several moves?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I think the biggest adjustment is that I've gotten more, I feel like I've gotten more snow here in the last couple of years than I had lived in living in the northeast. And then I feel like now I'm missing out on all the tornadoes back home. I'm not getting much. I mean I live here bowling green and we had that quad state tornado go through a couple years ago, but even 20 miles was a little close for comfort. Funny enough, I was actually outta state at the time this tornado rolled through.
Kyle David:You were out of state when the quad state tornado happened?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah, I happened to be out of state. I was at my brother's college graduation in Florida and then I'm up half the night watching the radar, making sure my house is fine, praying that my husband was fine 'cause he was still here.
Kyle David:Your husband was at the house at the time? In, in Tennessee.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Well, we were in Kentucky when the Quad State tornado rolled through, Oh
Kyle David:my gosh. That, that must have been an experience for him watching that unfold.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah, it was nerve wracking. And also the worst part is that I watched the tornadoes roll through, like the major, not major cities, but like big cities. Like even the one tornado rolled right past campus, Western Kentucky's campus. And you can still see the, the damage today. Now it's mostly like the trees are gone, so the sky's wide open where sky should not be wide open.
Kyle David:Wow. that's a little nerve wracking to have it come that close to your current workplace and to still be able to see the damage too. I've had cases like that with, I'll give an example. With Katrina, I went to. new Orleans and toward, stricken areas and there are still areas that are vacant. And to see those vacant areas where there should be stuff, it's a little eerie.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah. It's the same way with, the area that was damaged in downtown Bowling Green, because it was literally like, just blocks from campus and you can see it if you go to the higher levels of the library building, you can see the tornado path a little bit.
Kyle David:Now, I'm curious, as somebody who has had an interest in the weather and then transitioned to information sciences, how is, how did that experience feel at the time and how has that shaped your current experiences, the way you work in the information sciences realm or the STEM realm?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:granted, I wasn't directly affected by that tornado, but I. Know a lot of people on the college campus who were affected by it because a lot of people did lose their homes or have severe damage to their homes and had to be relocated for unknown amounts of time while they figured out their living situations and businesses were destroyed and stuff. So it just made me appreciate for what I have now, and also just raises the awareness that it's important to be alert and remain safe at all times and take things seriously when you have to. Then not everything is just it's a warning. I'll just go sit on the front porch and watch it go by. Or it's a warning or it's a watch. Oh, we should really take cover. People still forget the differences between a watch and a warning, and I try to differentiate them for people.
Kyle David:Yeah, it's, challenging to be able to distinguish the two 'cause people are just trying to get to their day to day. They have their own lives going on, and then you have the weather that. it doesn't work on any timeframe or anybody's schedules, it just does what it wants and can sometimes be very impactful.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah, it does. I guess for how it's influenced my information abilities, I just, I try to be more cautious of what I say and who I say it to and I have, and I also try to be, make, try to make sure I have all of my facts straight so that way I can be confidently knowledgeable in the situation to explain it to somebody who might not be as knowledgeable or as comfortable talking about it. And I also try to talk in terms that a general person could understand because, meteorology is full of lots of big and scary terms that have very lengthy definition. So it's also trying to find those analogies to make it more understandable.
Kyle David:On that note, I'm curious, what was, a memorable experience where you used an analogy to. Better educate somebody on a stem field or the weather and then, yeah, I'll ask that question first.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I can't pull an example directly related to the weather, but at least when I teach my classes, I've started comparing how to search for information by like shopping, like going shopping. So if you're searching for something on using Google, it's like shopping on Amazon where you're gonna find what you want, you're gonna find some things that are related to what you want, and then you're gonna find things that make you go, what the heck am I looking at? Why is this a search results? By searching in library catalogs. Library catalogs are basically like little warehouses that are accessible to, for all the information that he subscribed to. So library catalogs are like targets and Walmarts, you'll still find the relevant things you want and you might find some of the. Irrelevant things, but not as much because the noise is filtered out for the non-academic content for the most part. And then you go into the databases specifically. I compare that to say like a sporting goods store or a pet store. You go into a pet store to find pet things. You go into a sporting goods store for sports equipment and other things you don't go into the other store for. There was those other items,
Kyle David:that's a good analogy that you used with shopping and Amazon and using that analogy. There have been some crazy things that I've found in my searches for information that are similar to things that you see in Amazon. Like you're looking for a specific product and you're like, this is not what I'm looking for. Why are you here? On that note, what have been some oddball things that you've found in your information seeking teachings or experiences that really stick with you today?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Oh, I mean, I also do tell students that it's okay to use some of the prompts. Because as you type on Google, it'll give you suggestions for maybe questions or searches that you want to perform. I was looking up how I was baking something the other day and I wanted to look up how to shave chocolate, like make chocolate shavings. So I was trying to look up technique to shave, make chocolate shavings, and as I started typing it, I started getting some pretty wacky Google responses or Google suggestions that made me question what people are really searching on Google. I won't go in depth, but some of them are. Kind of inappropriate.
Kyle David:Yeah, no, no further explanation is needed for that. Yeah, people's minds can wander off quite a bit.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah. That's the most recent wahe example I could think of right now. And then it's also just trying to like hone in students on like sticking with the topic of their choice.
Kyle David:And then one more related question to your experiences with working with students before we go into the break, what's a wacky experience with them that has still stuck with you today in terms of getting down their research topic or helping them find the right information,
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I guess. 'cause I also do assessment. That's another part of my job. So I see how I do my lessons and I see how students actually learned. And some of the assessments I get do have open-ended feedback. And it's just frustrating when you clearly explain a concept and then you still get those students that are like, I still didn't learn anything. It's like, I don't know what to tell you. I, explained it to you as best I could and I can't help that you didn't wanna speak up and get additional assistance at this time. At the time you needed it. So it's just frustrating. I guess it's more of a frustration than a wacky thing.
Kyle David:It's hard not being able to teach the students what you're trying to teach. And it doesn't, the message doesn't get across. A lot of weather communicators have that issue, and when that weather information get, doesn't get across to people.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah, and it's also the same way too where I, if I ask them if there's anything that stuck out to them, they'll pick the most oddball thing from my lesson. Like, oh yeah, the library has a coffee shop, or the library has a children's section. Or, oh, I didn't know the library has this kind of thing. It's like, I'm glad you learned something new about the library, but maybe not really helpful for your, future class endeavors.
Kyle David:I mean, if it's coffee related, then maybe get them through their, their study sessions.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah.
Kyle David:But. We've barely scratched the surface with your teachings, your experiences in information sciences and all the stuff that you're studying there. We're gonna take a quick break right here, but don't go anywhere. We still got more everything Weather with Ashley coming up in just a little bit. In this special five part edition of On This Day Weather History, we continue to revisit one of the most devastating hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin, hurricane Katrina. By August 27th, hurricane Katrina reached category three strength, becoming the third major hurricane of the 2005 season. The system began an eyewall replacement cycle where a new outer ring of thunderstorms develop outside of the original eyewall and becomes the new eyewall of the hurricane. This eyewall replacement cycle briefly weakened Katrina, allowing it to better take advantage of its environment and a double in its size. Within nine hours, Katrina rapidly intensified from a category three to a category five hurricane over the Gulf of Mexico as it barreled north towards Louisiana. The National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane watch from Morgan City, Louisiana to the Louisiana, Mississippi border. New Orleans Mayor Ray Negan declared a state of emergency for the city, calling for voluntary evacuations in low lying areas with those who cannot simply evacuate the city due to a lack of transportation or physical or financial limitations. Mayor Ray Negan designated the Superdome as a quote, shelter of last resort. For those who could not or simply chose not to evacuate. By the evening, hurricane warning stretched from Morgan City to the Alabama Florida border. The storm surge forecast also called for catastrophic flooding with heights up to 15 to 20 feet above sea level for the New Orleans area, and 18 to 25 feet along the Mississippi Coast. Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center warned that Katrina was expected to be an intense and dangerous hurricane language reserved for the most catastrophic situations. In anticipation of Katrina, most if not all of the freight, Amtrak, air and ground traffic into the evacuation areas came to a massive slowdown or a complete halt. During the overnight hours and into the morning of August 28th, Katrina strengthened into a Category five hurricane. Though later that morning, the National Weather Service Office in New Orleans published an unusually dire warning. Leading residents to evacuate and forewarning that areas hit the hardest could be quote, uninhabitable for weeks. Louisiana Governor Kathleen Bannu Blanco, issued mandatory evacuations of all residents from the St. Charles, St. Tammany and Plex Mines parish. While others in surrounding areas were strongly urged to leave as soon
as possible at 2:00 PM it reached its peak strength about 300 miles south of New Orleans, with maximum sustained winds of 175 miles an hour. At that time, it became the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Gulf of Mexico. In less than 24 hours, Katrina would slam the Gulf Coast and forever change the region. In the next part of this special on this day and weather history, we'll continue to track Katrina as it wrecked havoc on Louisiana and the Gulf Coast. And the lasting impact it left behind. Hello and welcome back to the Everything Weather Podcast. I'm your host, Kyle David, and today on the podcast we've been talking with Ashley Raik Rossi. She's a meteorologist turned STEM librarian and assistant professor at Western Kentucky University. We've been talking about what initially got her into the weather and what made her transition to information sciences. We're gonna get back into that conversation more about her experiences and transition into information sciences. But first, I've got another fun game for you, Ashley. What are we planned? We've got weather fast money, so I've got five questions in the style of family feuds, fast money segment at the end of the show that are weather themed. Some of them are non weather themed, and your job is to try and get all the number one answers if possible. With that said, you're ready to get started.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I love Family Feud. I'm always shouting things at the TV when it comes on in the evenings.
Kyle David:Now, since you're a little bit of a a fan of Family Feud, do you want to feel really into the vibe with a timer, or do you just wanna do it on time?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I wanna try a timer.
Kyle David:Okay. You are the first person to, After the timer. All right. So we're gonna put 20 seconds on the clock. You're gonna be the first person that gets this time, so. We'll, if we'd go over the time, that's fine. Yeah. But we've got our timer for 20 seconds. I'm gonna start it after reading the first one. With that said, are you ready? Yes. All right. Timer starts after I read this first one. Name something that you love about summer
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Sunshine.
Kyle David:Name something besides books that you might find in a library. Computers name something that you associate with cold weather. Snow name an article of clothing people wear outside in spring, but not winter.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:A vest.
Kyle David:Name something you might see in the sky that you would make you say Ooh,
Ashley Orehek Rossi:rainbow.
Kyle David:All right. So we got it in just at 20 seconds. I read a little slow too, so that may have influenced it a little bit. alright, so let's go down the list. Off you said. Alright, so first one was name something that you love about summer. You said Sunshine Survey says number three, answer the weather. So we'll throw sunshine in there. Nine people said that.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Okay.
Kyle David:Summer vacation was the number one answer. Next one was name something besides books that you might find in a library you said. Computers survey says number one answer, 32 people said computers would be the next thing you'd find in the library. So next up we have name something that you associate with cold weather. You said snow survey says number one answer again with 27 people saying snow and cold weather. Next up you said, or next up is name an article of clothing people wear outside in spring but not winter. You said. A vest survey says Shorts is the number one answer.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Shorts, that is another one that would only be worn spring, but not winter.
Kyle David:Depending on where you are. That's true. That've seen a lot of New Englanders Northeasters wear shorts, so maybe it's, that one's a little up for debate.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:My husband's also one of those guys, he'll still wear shorts in the wintertime.
Kyle David:Now. Some people said flip flops. Who wears that?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I draw the line of flip flops.
Kyle David:Yeah, like shorts. Okay. I can, that's debatable, but flip flops I feel like should be the number one answer. Mm-hmm. But we'll leave that to everybody listening to debate and talk about that. Back to the weather fast money. The last one was name something you might see in the sky that you make. You say, Ooh, you said a rainbow survey says 15 people said that. That is the number three answer. Number one answer was fireworks. kind of makes sense,
Ashley Orehek Rossi:huh? Okay. Yeah, it makes sense.
Kyle David:I feel like it was, if it was a double rainbow, there would be a lot more oohs. Probably, All right, well that's weather fast money. We'll let you, the listener, decide on how Ashley did with this weather fast money, but I think you did good overall. A lot of number one answers there.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:If I get a solid 100 points, that's commendable, but I don't think I hit a solid 100 points and that's fine.
Kyle David:all right, that's our weather. Fast money. Now let's get back into the conversation a little bit about your transition from weather to information sciences. We talked a little bit about. Things you learned in your grad school experience, and then a little bit with your experiences with FEMA and AmeriCorps and other experiences that you experienced that made you want to transition to information sciences. I kind of wanna explore a little bit about your grad school experiences. 'cause that is a very, I don't wanna say untraditional, but it's, less typical than somebody who wants to go to grad school for something that they studied in their undergraduate when they first go to college. Let's explore that a little bit more. What were your experiences like in grad school compared to somebody else who knows what they're going into, from day one of college as an undergraduate?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I guess where my experience is very, is similar to others, is that I did have to go to my institution for my classes. But funny enough, I only had to be on campus really for the first semester. For my in-person classes. And then the other three semesters, I could have just been fully online. I even could have had all my classes online even that first semester. But I was under the requirement to be on campus, but my program is fully remote and I had classmates who completed their degrees from wherever they were in the world. I guess the other part of it is that I was a grad student during pandemic times, so I started off going to classes in person like a regular semester, and then halfway through the semester they were like, okay, time to go home. But it's also spring break, so we'll see what happens and the spring break comes and goes and they're like. Okay, you're not coming back. You have to stay home now. It's like, great. I almost had second thoughts why they're moving to EE was a good idea since I was only there maybe nine months before. They were like, you can't come. You can't come person.
Kyle David:Wow. So you basically moved, but then less than a year and then less than a year later, the COVID pandemic happens and everything's turned remote.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah. Actually I was think it was like six or seven months. Yeah. I was only living in Tennessee for maybe six or seven months, and then my husband and I, we actually bought a house like two months before the pandemic started, so it was like. Did we do something right? Do we do something wrong? Who knows? We'll just go with it.
Kyle David:Yeah. And for, for me, just to talk about that experience a little more, that was my undergraduate studies when COVID hit. Mm-hmm. And for some listeners that may have been when they were just in high school or for maybe our older listeners, that was when they've already established themselves in a job and then all of a sudden working from home Now, what was something you took away from that experience that has helped shape how you teach, how you share information in a digital setting?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:It helped me really get used to being strictly online. Fortunately for me, because my classes were already online this semester, the pandemic started, I had an easy transition into my coursework because there was no change. But I know that some people did have a hard time transitioning from in-person to online and then staying online. So I've also had to learn about some of the methodologies for teaching online when I do have to teach online, which thankfully now is. Not as common as teaching online, but I still had to learn how to get familiar with running zoom rooms and coordinating classes and creating course material for online settings a little bit.
Kyle David:What are some other experiences that you experienced that you walked away with and they have shaped your work today?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I really had to learn time management because while I was a full-time student, I was also a graduate assistant with quarter time hours, so I had about 10 hours a week devoted to my graduate assistant responsibilities, which left me another 30 hours basically for work. At that time, I was employed by a Starbucks, by the Tennessee campus, so I drove up from where I was living almost an hour away, four or five days a week to take shifts there, and I was working 20, 30 hours a week on top of my full-time work and my. Graduate assistant work, and then also having an hour commute on top of it. So I really had to learn time management and stuff. That was hard.
Kyle David:You said? No, go ahead.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I definitely came to love, grocery pickup. And this was before grocery pickup came mainstream during the pandemic.
Kyle David:And you said that you had an hour commute from home to school.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah. the other thing too, with me moving to Tennessee with my now husband, he had trouble finding a job in Knoxville where I was taking my classes. He ended up finding a job in Chattanooga. Chattanooga is an solid two hours from Knoxville. Thankfully it's down just, it's just down the interstate. But still, he, there was, at one point he was driving almost an hour and a half or a little over hour and a half for his work for a few months until we could find a house that was a little bit more central between both cities. In rural Tennessee. And that's where we lived for a couple of years.
Kyle David:Side note, like that is just a side note. Wow. Two hours to an hour and a half, two hours of driving. That's,
Ashley Orehek Rossi:that was just one way. Yeah. And then eventually that became my round trip commute was about two hours.
Kyle David:So you had to experience that too.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah. some point. So that was, was also hard. But I mean, you kind of have to live where you need to live to make the means.
Kyle David:That's true. And this won't be in the recording, but Yeah. A side note, I commuted it was more than two hours each way into the city. 'cause NJ transit, subway, you know that. I hate it. That, but like, no, I mean mine, like, I could just sit there on the train and just zone out. You guys had to drive. I feel like that's worse than taking the subway. Granted energy transit has so many problems that make it just as frustrating, but I could at least sit back and just wait for the train and just sit on the train and not have to worry. You guys have to like actually drive and that that's taxing.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah, it definitely made me miss public transit having those hour long commutes because the infrastructure doesn't exist down there to support it. We heard of things where there could have been a rail line between Knoxville and Chattanooga, but nothing ever came from it. It's a shame 'cause that would be such a utilized train service line.
Kyle David:That's a lot to have to balance. Being able to commute an hour and a half, two hours, a job on top of your studies. I'm curious, what is something that you learned in that, that any listener can take away in their, in apply to their life, whether in grad school right now, or doing some other studies, or maybe they're just tackling a whole bunch of other things.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah. and it's something that I'm still trying to self-teach myself now, and it's being resilient and giving yourself grace. 'cause we don't give ourselves enough grace for being able to do all the things that we do just to our abilities. Because while we want to do everything and possibly make carbon copies of ourselves to get everything done, we simply can't. And we just have to do what we can do best in the moment and make the decision that's best at the time. Like when my husband and I bought our house. East Tennessee between Chattanooga and Knoxville, that's what the decision was best for us at the time. Did we wanna do it? No. Did he want hour commutes? No. But he also didn't want a two hour commute either.
Kyle David:It's all about balancing different things. It's hard to. Sp, all of those things
Ashley Orehek Rossi:and perspective too. We're definitely more capable than people think. They are resilient. I might be quoting my Headspace app a lot. I use Headspace to keep me
Kyle David:sane a little bit. Headspace, if you wanna sponsor the podcast, this is your opportunity, but Headspace is a good app. I've heard from a lot of people who use the app. But going back to your experiences and balancing off that little known fact, I don't know if we talked about it earlier, but you're also a parent too, and I'm curious how is the perspective of being a parent, being a wife, all those perspectives help shape how you teach information. Seeking how to get people to look for the right information.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Also kind of goes into just the community that I live in now because I live in rural communities. A lot of students that come to Western Kentucky University are from rural communities. There's a good chunk of them. They're actually first generation students, so they're the. First ones in their families to go get a college degree. So it's learning how to interact with those types of populations and figuring out how did they think about things and how did they interpret things, which is also a little different from how my husband looks for information or me interpret something versus, I have an eight month old right now at the time of this podcast, but how is my eight month? How is my daughter going to look for things someday?
Kyle David:It's helpful to understand how, you know what people are, their experiences, demographics, and how that shapes their information seeking behavior. And on that note, was there some particular information seeking behavior from a particular audience that surprised you, say a specific demographic or geographic location? Or some other personality trait.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:It probably isn't, this one's probably not unique, but we all go to Google to look for things like that's just the default. Or if people use a different search engine like Bing or one of their apps, like Siri or Hey Google. We are just so quickly attuned to utilizing those, I don't wanna call 'em equipment, but I guess it is equipment in a sense, to find things. I don't, I can't think of what I wanna call it, software programs. It could be like tool tools. That's probably the best one. How quickly we're attuned to using these tools to find things and then how instantaneous the results are nowadays compared to where they were 15, 20 years ago.
Kyle David:I'm glad you brought up search engines because you know you, like you said, we've become quickly attuned to using them and I feel like you, we over utilize it a little bit and we have a reliance on search engines, not just for. Whether information for information in general, we wanna find out when, what the score is for the sports game. You just look it up. You wanna find out what? Obscure thing is you're talking about in a conversation, you look it up, what weather's going on in the Pacific Northwest, you look it up. What are some lost quote unquote lost research methodologies and ways that people can look for information that people should be using to look, you know, more deeply for information rather than just searching on Google.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:It goes back to the basics a little bit. There's some techniques that we're taught when we're in primary school or elementary school. It's ident. When you write a paper, you identify who's the what, the one, the where, the why, and the how, and you use those same questions to identify the sources that you are getting your information from. Because four different sources could all say the same thing, but you also have to look at the credibility of those sources too. Where are they getting their information from or are they the, information creator? Where did, did the information originate from them? To begin with, there's a lot of people that will use websites strictly because I guess I'll use Facebook a lot. I heard a lot of. Social media. I heard a lot of people today get their news off of social media or particularly TikTok and it's like, that's not really the best place to always get your information from because sometimes those content creators are a little bit skewed. And then it's also trying to navigate through who's giving you correct information versus who's giving you possibly inflated information.
Kyle David:And we've, I've had a few people I've talked about, people get their weather information on social media. Thinking back to a specific example, I talked with Matt Lanza about hurricane, what was the exact hurricane, but I'll scratch that part. But I've talked with people about social media and specifically like with Hurricane Milton. Hurricane Helene, there was a lot of misinformation on social media and unfortunately a lot of people these days get their news, their information from social media. And like you said, credibility is something that we don't really look into. On that note, what are some specific things that you've picked up in your studies, your teaching that. People can use to identify credible sources or find whether stuff is trustworthy or not.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:So on, a lot of the ones that people will remember from their school days are looking at URLs, common url, endings are com, dot edu gov, nets org, things like that. So initially we were taught anything from a.com is not great. Everything from a.org is good today. It's kind of reversed a little because there's plenty of good, credible information from.com websites, like mainstream publications like the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times, or the Washington Post. I know I'm naming some big major. Newspapers, but they do get, they can be some first line information sources, but, and they have data and research to support what they're writing about. Whereas there's some organizations out there that call themselves great organizations, but they might have some misleading information. there's some things that we find on, like climate science and stuff, for example, that may say coal's actually really good for the environment. But then we have lots of evidence that says coal can contribute to climate change and stuff. So it's just navigating through the noise and figuring out where are people getting their information from and how credible are these people? Like, do they actually have doctorates in their fields of study or do they claim to have something and they really don't? There's a lot of suspicious information.
Kyle David:Yeah. it's important to be able to distinguish, what are people's credentials? Do they have a certificate that tells 'em, Hey, this person's reputable in the weather field. I mean, there's the. Certified broadcast Meteorologist seal, the certified digital seal. Mm-hmm. For the weather worlds. I'm curious if you were involved with the social media framework laying out the framework of how information is sought out on social media, what's one thing that you would add to help better distinguish good information and bad information in terms of whether and just STEM information in general?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I liked the Verif. I know this is a stretch, but I liked the verified check marks. Say they used to be on Twitter or X for accounts that said, Hey, this person or this organization is who they are. I think that could also be applied to maybe specific posts or specific pieces of information. I wish they, I don't know if it's, I haven't been on Twitter in a while, so I don't know if it's still there, but, and I know there's been a lot of conversations around free speech and First Amendment things, but. I think there needs to be a line drawn somewhere where someone is purposely disin inform rather than maybe accidentally misinforming. So maybe we can try and knock out some of the bad information there.
Kyle David:Maybe they get like an anti check mark or something if they're intentionally disin. Inform. I don't know. Some, I don't know people speak.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I just have feelings about people purposely. Th they're purposely disin inform people. That's what disinformation is that you're purposely putting on information, is construed or incorrect Misinformation is where people are resharing information, but they don't realize it's incorrect, so there's no maliciousness behind it. Whereas disinformation has that maliciousness. Yeah. Does that kinda make sense?
Kyle David:No. Yeah. It's hard to draw that line, especially with weather communications, because people, again, with Milton, with Helene, they were sharing these things to get clicks, to get the views, and if they were getting paid for those views. And some of them may not be realizing. Wait a minute, this is not correct information. Or maybe they were, hopefully they were realizing at the end like, Hey, this is not trustworthy. And for the other side of information seeking for those, creating content to inform the public on whether STEM fields, advancements news, what are some things that can be done on that end to improve information seeking behaviors and
Ashley Orehek Rossi:promote good ones. You're asking me really a lot of good questions today. I'm also still new in this field. I do want to point that out to listeners. Identify as an early career professional, I've only been a professional librarian maybe four years, so I've been outta grad school about four years. I've only been maybe out of undergrad, not quite 10 years. So there's still a lot of things that I'm learning and also still trying to learn. In our ever changing society. there's now the issue where we talked about the different URL endings for credibility, for credible sources of information. I'm now starting to possibly question the dot govs since now they're changing a lot of things with government documents and various terminology from the current administration's deeming as potentially woke. So it's like, I'm not sure what I can direct students to, or people to, at least for our federal government.
Kyle David:Mm-hmm. So evaluating the.gov websites too, that,
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Hmm. At least now, which is hard for me to swallow 'cause I would always go to them pretty regularly, but now it's making me question, can I go to these?
Kyle David:That is something to definitely think about a little more. But going back to the original question, what are some things on the other end that creators, communicators in the weather and STEM fields can use to promote good information seeking behaviors? I
Ashley Orehek Rossi:think it's being transparent and upfront from the get go. Hey, I got my information from the National Weather Office in Nashville, or I got my information from the Weather Prediction Center in College Park. I think that's where it's located. So like constantly referring to that, I got these from, I got my information from this, this source or this credible person kind of thing. I think it's just raising the awareness of where you're getting your information from and just being transparent about that from the get go.
Kyle David:that's a good point. Being transparent and where you get your information from. And on that note, it ties back to something we mentioned a little bit earlier with AI and that's been a huge conversation these days and being transparent about using AI for information seeking information gathering is very crucial. I'm curious, what do you see some of the challenges. AI and using that for information seeking for weather science information that should really be addressed Now.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I think that AI is not the end all be all. I do think AI is useful for some content creation, maybe exploration, trying to get some new ideas or different perspectives about things. I've also heard of people using them to find errors in their programming codes. My dad told me about an instance last week where AI picked up on a couple of errors that he missed. My dad is a software engineer for Comcast, and I really think that just technology in general misses that human finesse of critical thinking. 'cause you can tell when something is, you can tell when something's human generated versus computer generated. Like for example, there was a teacher who reached out to me and one of the other librarians about identifying if this student used AI to create a paper for this cl this advanced writing class. So I took a look at it with. The other librarian and I evaluated the citations. I actually looked up every citation that was used in this document. They were all fake citations, so they did not exist, but they were pulled from elements that did exist. So the AI tool, the student used fabricated citations. They claim to exist that they have claimed to exist, but don't. And then also just from reading the paper that was submitted, the, you could tell from reading it, it was lacking that critical thinking behind it. Like it was missing. It was missing something. And I think what it was missing was the student
Kyle David:that human touch, like you were saying, it was, yeah,
Ashley Orehek Rossi:it's missing that human touch. And I think. I think AI and technology won't ever be able to touch that human touch that we still need.
Kyle David:That's definitely an interesting perspective and one that's not been explored by the past conversations I've had about AI and weather and communications. AI can't replace that human touch.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah, exactly.
Kyle David:And I'm curious because you have a very interesting perspective as a an assistant professor, how do you address the use of AI in the academic space? can it be viewed as something theoretical to, academic rigor, those critical thinking skills? Or is it something that should be embraced or, incorporated into critical thinking skills and future research endeavors?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I think it does need to. Be incorporated because it's like when the age of the internet rose up, maybe 20, 30 years ago, people were afraid that it was really gonna change how things worked. it did, but it changed things for the better and maybe for the worse a little bit, but did change. It did change things. So I think it's just another piece of technology that we just have to learn how to embrace. I ultimately cannot tell someone that they can and can't or if they should or should not use it, but we can at least maybe provide some guidance if you do choose to use it or choose not to use it. There are some professors who will. Put statements in their syllabi that say, please do not use AI in this class at all. And there's other professors that may say, Hey, we'll use AI to this extent, whatever they define as the extent. So yeah, I think it's something we just need to learn how to embrace. I think, like I had alluded to earlier. And some of my comments, I think it has its uses maybe for like discovery and content creation, but maybe not for full complete analysis. I think analysis and critical thinking still needs that human touch.
Kyle David:Yeah, there's a lot of work that needs to be done with ai. A huge ton of work before it gets to that point. And I don't want that Skynet future 2001 Space Odyssey, insert cliche about AI taking over the world. I don't want it getting to that point where it replaces the human touch. But we've got a ways to go before we get to that. I'm not a AI expert, but just seeing what is out there, it's long ways to go for that.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah.
Kyle David:But I want to, explore overall. 'cause you've had very interesting experiences transitioning from weather to information seeking studies. What is it like being a professor and teaching people about information sciences and STEM information?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:So people don't necessarily think of librarians as professors because a lot of us don't go to grad school to get PhDs in whatever our field of choice is. A lot of people don't, just, a lot of people don't realize that we also put in a lot of the same work that teaching faculty do. It's just we tend to cover more students than some teaching faculty do. They might. I have their little research group of five to six students. They might be teaching a couple hundred students a semester. Whereas I'm teaching several thousand students, upwards of several thousand students a semester at times.
Kyle David:I just wanted to clarify, you said several thousand students. Well,
Ashley Orehek Rossi:it seems like several thousand at least. I am the subject liaison. I have the subject liaison responsibility of several thousand students.
Kyle David:I wanna dive a little more into that. 'cause that's a large population of students that you are teaching. are they all, just to clarify, are they all in person, are they all remote or is it a mix?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:It's, I guess I'll put more as a mix. And in reality, I don't really, I don't teach several thousand students. It seems like I do because the subject liaison responsibilities, I have cover 3000 plus students. But in reality, I might teach 500 students or so a semester.
Kyle David:I mean, still that's a quite a large population of students. That's like something you'd see out of like an introduction class that everybody needs to take. But I'm curious about your teaching experience and teaching all those students. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah. It's I guess it's like regular teaching faculty where I don't really have formal, I don't necessarily have formal teaching experience. I didn't take any classes to learn how to write lesson plans or how to structure a semester long class. I just had to figure it out as I go, and I think I finally. Hit my stride now four years into it. I guess where I'm trying to go is that I do teach like regular teaching faculty, but I teach it slightly differently. I don't necessarily teach semester long courses. I teach more what we call one shot instructions. So I'll go into a class maybe once a semester. Sometimes I'm asked to come back a second or third time depending on the topics that an instructor wants to cover. So, that's where it differs a little bit. I could teach a semester long class if I wanted. I just dunno what I would do because I cover, I guess I'm like a generalist in that sense because I cover so many disciplines all at once. Yes, mom. I am pretty knowledgeable in meteorology, science, chemistry, math topics, et cetera. I also had to learn biology and agriculture and architecture at some other facets of engineering. That way I can learn how. Talk to these different students. Don't know if I fully answered the question. I don't think I'm answering it the way I wanted to, but yes, I do teach. I also do research. It also depends on the institution you're at, because some librarians, they're not considered faculty. They're just considered staff, so they don't have the same research and service requirements of them to perform in their role. I am, because I'm on the tenure track as at the assistant professor rank, I do have to follow different criteria to get promotion and tenure. Tenure, like service opportunities and teaching and research. I just got a paper published, actually last month. It was my first one from grad school, which, which feels good to do. I think total, it's my fifth paper that I've written since grad school. It's my first one on my own, which is, which feels like a really big, like a big hit step almost. And it's also a little different too, because I know some professors, I listened to one of your other podcast episodes recently with, who was at Utah.
Kyle David:Dr. Alyssa Stansfield.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah. So I, I listened to that episode recently and she was talking about writing grants to get students to come in. And I don't necessarily write grants because that's not really in my purview to try and get students to come in for a research team. But I could, if I wanted and the cards fell appropriately, I could write research grants or other grant proposals to get funding for the libraries. I know librarians at other institutions do have to write grants in order to get funding for various projects. So. we do the same thing as teaching faculty. It's a little bit different. And then it's also, it gets a little frustrating because they don't really, some teaching faculty don't really see us as equal. And maybe it's because of the doctorate credential, which is a shame because I feel like we all put in the same kind of work. It's just we don't specialize in say, wildlife biology or thermodynamics. I don't know.
Kyle David:And so you were talking a little bit about the, I guess it's a little bit of an imbalance or, trying to think of the right word, but when it comes to working with. Different faculty and students. What's a memorable experience for you in working in that role? And then what's a challenging experience for you working with faculty and students?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:One of the challenges I run into pretty regularly is just getting into the classroom and interacting with students. I'll send out all these emails every semester. Up until the recent semester where I was on maternity leave or parental leave, I was trying to go into department meetings to remind faculty about X, Y, and Z and that I'm here if you need it. It just, it seems like some of the older faculty help it seems, want to interact with us 'cause they think they know everything or they have different perceptions and that's more it. They have a different perception of what the libraries can and can do to support them. So I try to work with the newer faculty that come in before they are influenced by older faculty that the libraries aren't maybe what they think they are. And so far it's worked. I've gone a couple, I have, I can think of three professors off the top of my head that will come back to me regularly for classes and that makes me feel good. So I have that consistency. And I think I'm starting to hit my stride with a couple of the 100 level classes that I teach for biology. So maybe I can make something more concrete there. Like I wanna get into the classroom, I do wanna do some more teaching, but I just need the faculty to come help me out. And then I also found in an experiment, I tried with one of those new faculty, did small group instructions instead of me coming into the large, was it a hundred plus? And it's one of those like bio 100 sections. And this Bio 100 section has an honors section that's about 20, 25 students. So instead of me coming to the whole biology class of a hundred plus, I just sat down with the. honor students in small groups to talk about their assignment and how to find different resources that are required of them to put on their assignment or required of them to incorporate on their assignment. I think the one I just talked about was probably the most memorable so far. 'cause like I said, I've been really trying to find my stride and figure out what works and I'm finding that interactivity is probably the most engaging thing that I can get from the students. And analogies, I like using analogies
Kyle David:as a follow-up question, what's your favorite analogy to use in terms of information science or even a meteorology, if you wanna tie back into that?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:At least for information sciences. I don't know if I talked about this already. I compare using different platforms for finding resources to shopping. So if you go straight out on Google or whatever, search engine is your choice or whatever, search engine, whatever search engine, you preference, it's like shopping on Amazon because you'll type in whenever you want, you'll find it. Then you'll find some things that are probably really relevant to what it is, and then you also find some things that make you go, why is this a search result? This is just unnecessary. Then if you go into the library catalog and you search for things, it's more like Walmart or Target because it filters out some of those unnecessary things, but it still gives you some things that you're probably looking for. And library catalogs are nice because the content they search in is only through what they have access to. Then if you go directly into a database, say I teach a lot with PubMed for bio biology students, or since it's a meteorology podcast, we can talk about the am the Bulletin Bolton. You can search in those, and if you search in those specifically, it's like shopping at a sporting goods store or a pet store because you're going to find specific content only, like you wouldn't expect to find pet supplies at a sporting goods store. Right, and you wouldn't expect to find sporting goods stuff at a pet store, right?
Kyle David:Normally, yes.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Exactly. So that's, the analogy that I used. Some other librarians will try and rope in different streaming services like Netflix or Spotify. And in different contexts, yeses are relevant for students to understand.
Kyle David:And I'm curious a little bit, because we've been talking a little bit about your experiences as a professor, as a librarian. and I've talked with a bunch of people both on and off the podcast about meteorology skills being applied to different areas. And I'm curious, what meteorology skills have you found that applied to the role of a librarian and information scientist and also a professor?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:One thing I've noticed, Because we have to learn about coding. Those people probably learn Python. I also learned, Fortran, that's a really old one. Way before my time Millersville had me take a FORTRAN class. That was one of the required classes when I was a student. I guess it's still relevant. I don't know if it's still is. But regardless, we have to learn coding. So depending on what I do, I do need to know some coding, like the website interfaces I use to create the online research guides, HTML and c plus. So I had to learn H TM L coding. And then depending on what kind of workshops that I wanna teach someday, which I haven't done them yet, they're in the works. But they may require some kind of coding, like Python or I don't know. Python's probably the most common one people use. They get the point. That's one. At least that's one skill that we can use. And then depending on what you do with your meteorology degree. Or what your interests are, you could do research. So I'm doing some research for some various projects that I'm interested in. There's also a lot of data analysis, so I'm always assessing how things are working out and figuring out how to adjust depending on what the results are. So those are a couple of examples of how skills and meteorology can be applied to librarianship. And I think also the other part too is it's different every day. Just like a forecast is different every day. And then I get my, if you wanna go into the MERG emergency management side, it's like I get my blue sky periods and my gray sky periods. Right now I'm a very dark gray sky period. 'cause work's been driving me crazy a little bit with all the responsibilities and obligations that have come up just in these couple of weeks, right before spring break, since we're recording here in mid-March. But then I have some down periods where it gets closer to the end of the semester or the beginning of the semester where people don't necessarily, may not necessarily feel they need a librarian as much, but I'm still here if they. I got a quick question or something. And then summer breaks too. Summer breaks are very quiet. I can get a lot of projects done.
Kyle David:It's funny 'cause I've had an emergency management person on and I've, I did not hear her use that phrasing. Blue skies, gray skies. But I'm curious, how do you navigate the ups and downs of not just, being a librarian and information scientist, but also in a broader context life?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:How do I, so like my work life balance?
Kyle David:Yeah, let me rephrase that, but how do you navigate the ups and downs of life and maintain a healthy work life balance?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Even though we live in a world where we can work remotely, I could do my whole job remotely if I wanted, but because it is such a public facing position, I do have to go in office. So one thing I've really learned since becoming a parent is how to turn off usually. So I've been trying really hard this semester to a leave work at work. And if I bring work home, I put my laptop away. Actually, I don't even bring my work laptop home. I just log in through the cloud, the Microsoft Cloud on my personal laptop. It just makes it easier. So it's been really learning how to shut off and at least I'm in a job and profession where I can turn off and it's okay because I need my time and my space to recoup. I know there are some people, like my husband, he works in a role where technically he has to be online and available 24 7 365. 'cause you never know when an an incident's gonna happen. He works in environmental health and safety for his company. There was one time, I think it was a couple years ago, one of his facilities had a fire overnight. Nobody was there, nobody got hurt, but they were still trying to call him throughout the night to say, Hey, this building's on fire. We need to tell somebody.
Kyle David:He must have had do not disturb on or the sleep mode on either that or he was just, he was out like a light.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I think that was more, he was out like a light that night. But I'm fortunate that I have that ability to do that. And my workplace, I am fortunate to have coworkers and administration that encourages good work life balance. If you need to take a day off to, for a mental health day, like one of my colleagues had to do that recently. And that's okay. We, we need a little time to rest and reset. Sick days. Sick days. If you get sick, that's fine. I know when I was pregnant, I had a hard time, some days were harder than others, so my coworkers were like, Hey, if you're really tired, just go home and get some rest. You've got it from here. It's definitely, it's important to give yourself the time that you need. Like I, I'll go to the gym and usually that's my time to myself. My mother-in-law moved in recently, so I'm also trying to navigate that too. She's my daycare because. I couldn't get my child into daycare. Daycare has become a doggy dog world in today's society. It's ridiculous, and it's also really expensive. I'm fortunate that if I did send my child to daycare where I live, it's relatively affordable. But I I've heard that in some major cities it could be like, what did somebody say recently? It was like between 500 and a thousand dollars a week. Wow. Yeah. It's ridiculous.
Kyle David:not to get on a side note, I feel like those kind of services in general have gotten expensive. 'cause on a side note, I take care of my grandfather and caretaking for the elderly is so exorbitantly priced and it's ridiculous.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:it's probably similar for elderly care, just like child daycare, but it's also giving like the time. It's time for yourself. And then I'd also don't see my child during the day. So sometimes she'll come with me to the gym, even though she'll, she's little and she just hangs out on the floor. She'll hang out on the floor while I. Go on one of the machines or go do weights sometimes because she's small enough, I'll use her as one of my weights. She makes a great kettle ball or a great dumbbell.
Kyle David:If you ever want to makeshift weight, use a small child.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I mean, it works. there's videos out there where people get creative with, incorporating babies and toddlers into your workout routines because for most of their small years, they're the same weight as some of those dumbbells other equipment.
Kyle David:Yeah, and you also get to entertain them too at the same time.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Exactly. Yeah.
Kyle David:I love that. Go ahead. So
Ashley Orehek Rossi:it's that, and I try to eat healthy when I can. I drink a lot of water. I actually don't drink as much coffee as probably some people think I, I limit myself purposely to like maybe one or two cups snacks, and that's a cup being five to six ounces instead of eight to 12 ounces. I'll drink tea all day. I love tea, but I like that it's also not as caffeinated as coffee is.
Kyle David:Yeah. You gotta watch what you drink with the caffeine. 'cause I'm at the point where I am drinking like three cups of coffee a day and it's, it's not, it's not doing anything.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:No shame on that.
Kyle David:Anyways, that's, it's very interesting insight. You've had a lot of different experiences throughout your career, throughout your life. I am curious if there's one piece of advice that you can leave, looking back at all of your experiences, what would you give or what's one piece of advice that you're given that still sticks with you?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:One piece of advice that I was given, I'm trying to think. 'cause I've had a lot of really great mentors over the years. Of course you had asked me an advice question and my go-to piece of advice is just gone. What was it? It's really escaping me. I know it's gonna hit me at some point. This advice question,
Kyle David:you're gonna remember it
Ashley Orehek Rossi:after we, after we sign off. Yeah, that always happens.
Kyle David:That's always how it works. If you want, we can come back to that one later.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah, let's come back to that one. I, I know I've, I know there's like been that one piece of advice that's really gotten me through. I'm just trying to figure out what it was anyway. I'm sure it'll hit me probably later in our conversation.
Kyle David:Yeah, that's fine. But now looking a little bit forward in time to the future, how do you see the way not only meteorology information, but also STEM information being relayed, being searched for in the next year, five years, if you wanna be bold 10 years?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:That's a good question. I should also disclaim that should have done some BNA about all of my opinions are my own and not representing my university. I can't really say what's gonna happen with science because it just seems like with the new administration that science is under fire significantly and it hurts a little bit. to see it like that. I don't, I can't really say where it's gonna go and what's gonna happen. I've been even advising students and faculty lately, more so students that if they want things from the government and they're having trouble finding it, I'll do my best to try and help them. But I can't say what's going to happen with them. I know there's been efforts out there to preserve what's been deleted or possibly going to be deleted. I already know there's been a bunch of data sets that have been deleted from various entities, but some of them have been preserved in other places. So I can't really say what's gonna happen with science. I just hope people will better accept it because a lot of people put work into this research. And there's also been consistent findings. I hope people will come around to their senses with science that it's there. It's been around for thousands of years really, but it hasn't really been recorded and studied probably since until the last maybe 500 or so years. If I had to put a number on it. More small children running around.
Kyle David:They're really getting into it. Yeah,
Ashley Orehek Rossi:they are. Let's see, so I guess science has just been proven over and over again, and there's consistency with a lot of these findings. It makes me hard to believe. It makes it seem like it's hard to believe that people will still denounce whatever they hear, and it's a shame that there have been those few studies that have made those kind of denouncement. To, I don't wanna say pollute the waters, but they polluted the waters a little. So I hope people will come around to their senses and be smart and cautious of what they read online and just verify across multiple sources instead of just seeing the first source that they see. And assuming that's the end all, be all. 'cause it's not, and that's another thing that I try and teach students too, is fact check a little bit, fact check to the best of your abilities. If you're seeing the same thing across multiple sources and it's consistent information, then it's probably valid. If you're seeing that one oddball source among the in, among the, if you're seeing that one inconsistency across the consistencies, I wouldn't probably use it.
Kyle David:Yeah, and I've even heard about that with the AI tools that have been coming out and, you know, double check all the information, double check, you know, images, text, and because it's becoming an issue where people don't recognize that it's AI work. And I've had a whole bunch of people talk about AI and it's gonna be very interesting to see what the future holds, not only for the political side, but also the technological side, the societal side, everything in the next just year. 'cause like you said, we, it's hard to pinpoint on what things are gonna look like in a year, two years. Yeah. Five.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah. I mean, it's already advanced pretty quickly regarding AI because. I think it was the first semester, I think it was fall 22, and it really started becoming big, I think. I think that was the semester CHA VT came out. And then that following spring we were scrambling trying to figure out how do we teach about cha vt? Because professors were starting to ask us questions and we didn't have answers. And then by the following school year, we actually were, my one colleague, she made a, an AI literacy workshop that gets taught at least once a semester, which is great. And I think people need that. And then depending on the AI tool you use, they only know as much as they're taught. So they can, they could be taught on these super vast databases, but it would depend on when they, how far that data goes up to the current day. Like at the time when I was teaching Chap GPT before I went on parental leave, it was valid up until. I think it was like December, it was like November or December 23. So when I was teaching about chat GBT and Spring 24, I couldn't ask it who won the Super Bowl or who think it was gonna win the Super Bowl 'cause they didn't make it that far in time, for example. So they, they only know as much as they're programmed, but some are a little bit smarter and they are, some have a wider data set attached to them. And then obviously as more people interact with them, that's more data to, to learn off of. So sometimes I'm a little cautious for what I use AI four and when I ask it, because if I give it too much information, it's going to know. That much more. I tend to use it for really basic commands right now. Like I use my Siri on my iPhone for very basic commands, and for me that's sufficient. I'll ask it a question and I'll gimme a answer. I'll ask it what time it is or set a timer kind of thing. Make a phone call. Love that feature.
Kyle David:To go back to what you said about the information going in controls, what comes out and it, it's in a way similar to weather models, the better the data going in, the better data coming out. Yeah. The faster quality data goes into the models, the less better forecast that you get.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah. You could compare it to weather models in that instance. I mean, that's what ai, that's what these AI tools are. They're that large language models, so they're only as good. What you put in.
Kyle David:Definitely. And we've got one more question before you, it's kind of a little bit of a segment before our last tried and true segment. It, it's a little bit of an open-ended segment that allows you to, it opens the floor up to you and talk about things we didn't get to or other things that you'd like to leave behind. So, with that said, are there any final parting thoughts that you'd like to leave? Anything we didn't touch upon during our conversation that you'd like to bring up? Maybe bust a myth about a, a librarian or information scientist.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah, I, I feel like I break a lot of the stereotypes for a librarian because. I don't really wear a lot of sweater vests or cardigans. No cardigans. I don't wear a lot of cardigans because a lot, that's like one of the main staples. I also don't have a lot of graphic tees or graphic swag that are book and reading related. I don't have cats. A lot of librarians are known to have cats and a lot, do some of my coworkers have cats? I do not because A, I don't care for cats. B, I'm allergic. My husband's a little salty about that one, but,
Kyle David:okay. And so you have a child
Ashley Orehek Rossi:And I have a child. a lot of librarians are known to be fantasy or fiction files, so they love getting lost in stories that take 'em outside of the world that we're in. I don't necessarily like those. My best friend tried having me do Dungeons and Dragons once, several years back. I could not play that game for the life of me at all. I cannot get my mind in a fantasy world. I can role play or think on the fly. In that context, I just was trash at that game. A lot of librarians love playing games like that too, and that's fine. I just, I'm not one who doesn't, I prefer learning about things. I might pick up the one fiction book once in a while, but I like historical fiction. My current genre, if you call it a genre, is popular science. At least that's what I've coined it as. I don't know if it's an actual genre. So these books, they're written like in a story like you would read in a fiction novel, but they're teaching you something. There was one I read a couple years ago, it still sticks out in my mind. It's called Humble Pie like pi, and it's all about these mathematical mistakes that have happened over the last couple millennia. It's really fascinating. Like one of the stories they'll talk about is this one skyscraper that was built in London back in I think it was the early 2000 tens. It was definitely in this century, but the glass that they used on the outside of it, there was something different about the reflection on it to where the sun came, if the sun hit it at the right angle, it actually got so hot that it started melting cars on the streets.
Kyle David:It's almost like a little huge, or not a little, but a huge magnifying glass, magnifying the sun.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I forget which building it was. It was the one that either looks like a cell phone or it's a cheese grater. I think it was the one that's called a cheese grater. I don't remember, but it was some skyscraper in London that did this. And then they also talk about like how there was like an infamous bridge collapse, I think sometime in the last century out in California, because it just went super. The bridge got like really, really wavy and they explain why that happened. And there's other things in there too. It's just really fascinating. Unfortunately, there are people who died in some of these situations, but it's just that it is just because of a mathematical error made that these events happened.
Kyle David:The the, the Tacoma Narrows bridge is the bridge you're thinking of. I remember that. Yeah. I think that's
Ashley Orehek Rossi:it. Yeah.
Kyle David:Yeah. High Winds had. Actually, it wasn't even really high winds, it was just because the way the bridge was designed, it just naturally bounced in the wind and only took like, I think it was like 30, 40 miles an hour. Don't, don't quote me on this part to make the bridge kind of wobble so much and amplify to the point where it structurally handle it and ended up collapsing.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah, I could go into more stories from this book, but I'll, I'll save that for people to read it. There's also a lot of other books out there too. I try to actually buy them for my collection, so when I could read them too, I can also promote them for students to read. 'cause I think they're really fascinating. There's one author who I've been particularly interested in lately, her name is Mary Roach. She's not a scientist, but she's one of those like science writers and she's got a slew of books out there on different topics. Like she talks about military science and the elementary canal, like eating things. I think my favorite one that she wrote was all about like, it was all about like death and dying. So it was like, what do you do with human cadavers and. It was, it seems kind of gross. It took me a while to read it, but it was really fascinating.
Kyle David:Very interesting. And we'll make sure to include that book and then Humble pie in the show notes for people to go and check out if they want to go and get that book on Amazon or wherever they get their books from.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Exactly. So those are my books of choice. I'm an atypical librarian
Kyle David:in a way. We are all atypical to the roles that we are in and the things that we do, and that's the fun of it.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah. I also like to think I'm a little bit more outgoing and social than some other librarians because stereotypically we're quiet, reserved. We are more introverts. Whereas I am one of those intro outro verts, or is it intro extrovert? What are they called?
Kyle David:It's like ambivert or where it's like a mix.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:You know what I mean? yeah. I feel I identify with, with that category. I have my days where I'm more outgoing than others.
Kyle David:All right. Well Ashley, the Sun is setting on our, our conversation and I forgot to mention that's called the sunset segment. That's, I guess what, I'm coining it now. That's fine. But the sun is setting on our conversation in this episode, but it is not just the end. It's not the end just yet. We have one more fun game for you before we wrap things up, and that is our weather or not trivia, a fun little game where we do some weather themed and non weather themed trivia questions for you and we will see how things go. With that said, are you ready? Yes. All right. This is whether or not your first question is related to Kentucky. In 1792, when Kentucky became the 15th state admitted to the union, it split off from what existing state? Was it a Virginia B, West Virginia, C, Pennsylvania, or d Tennessee?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I could see the map in my head. What state was it attached to? I wanna say it was Virginia because there was like the lines, the horizontal lines against the latitudes at one point. Dividing state. So I'm gonna go with Virginia.
Kyle David:Virginia. Final guess. That's
Ashley Orehek Rossi:my final guess.
Kyle David:You are correct. It was Virginia. Virginia doesn't get a lot of love. Kentucky. Split off from Virginia, West Virginia, split off from Virginia. Nobody wants to be in Virginia evidently, but you are correct. It is Virginia. Yes. Next que or lemme try that again. This is whether or not your next question is related to rainbows, specifically in pop culture. This is whether or not your next question is related to rainbows, specifically in pop culture. In 2010, Paul Bear Vasquez filmed a rainbow over his front yard in his home. In California, s statically yelling rainbow all the way across the sky. What kind of rainbow was in the viral video? Was it A, a single rainbow, B, a double rainbow, C, a triple rainbow, or D, a supernumerary? When
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I do not remember this viral vi video at all. Obviously it had to be something, you'd think it'd be something that was extravagant to make him shout that, but it also just could have been just as simple as seeing a rainbow to still him a him. Shout it. I'm go with the double rainbow.
Kyle David:Double rainbow is your final guess.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah. Like I said, I don't remember this viral video.
Kyle David:You are correct. It is a double rainbow. Oh. So he yelled double rainbow all the way.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Wow.
Kyle David:So most people will understand that some people may not. 'cause it's very niche in terms of like pop culture and it became a very popular meme around that time and for quite a while.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Now I'm curious about this meme,
Kyle David:double rainbow all the way. That's all you need? Look up for that.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah, I'll find it.
Kyle David:All right. all right. This is whether or not your next question is related to Harry Potter, which magical sweet comes with collectible cards, displaying famous witches and wizards. Was it a birdie? Bots every flavored beans, B fizzing, Whis, C, chocolate frogs, or D dribbles, best blowing gum.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Which candy came with a trading card in it, or, yeah. Is part of a trading card series. That's the chocolate frogs.
Kyle David:Chocolate frog is your final guess.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Final guess.
Kyle David:You are correct. It is the chocolate frogs that come with the collectible cards of Famous, which is in wizards.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I used to be a Harry Potter file back in the day.
Kyle David:Harry Potter's got its charm. What, and just side question, what would you say is your favorite book or movie?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:My favorite movie is The Sorcerer Stone, like the original one. My favorite book I probably would put at the Order of the Phoenix.
Kyle David:There's some good books too. And then the original Sorcerer Stone movie with, I can picture him in my head. The guy who played Dumbledore, the original actor.
Ashley Orehek Rossi:I know who you're talking about. He's the og. No one can replace him. That fits. Yeah, I
Kyle David:I mean, no disrespect to But you'll understand why in a second 1987 book, chaos Making a New Science Covered Chaos Theory and started with the works of which famous meteorologist was it? A Ted Fujita, B Isaac Newton, C James Murdoch, Austin, or d Edward Norton Lorenz. Ooh,
Ashley Orehek Rossi:that's really testing my meteorology knowledge. Side note, I do have another favorite popular science book. It was, oh, I can picture the book title. It's not on my office shelf, but, It kind of followed Berk ness and Berk's son throughout how they created like numerical bottling. It was really fascinating. Anyway, to answer your question, I think it was Lorenz based on my, but I think I know is right. I'm gonna try and find this other book that I was telling you about.
Kyle David:Okay, and Edward Norton. Loren is your final guess. Yeah, you are correct. It was Edward Norton Lorenz. Who studied chaos theory and led to the creation of chaos theory itself when he was playing around with weather models and found with one small change. There can be a whole bunch of different changes down the line. You know the phrase butterfly flaps its wings, tornado in the planes. Exactly. Or a hurricane in South America, something like that. But. With that said, that is the last whether or not trivia question, and you are one of the few guests who have gotten all of the whether or not trivia questions. Right. How do you feel about that?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:That is quite an honor to get all five for H and I swear three of those were based on intuition.
Kyle David:Whether it was intuition or skill or knowledge, you made it to the hall of fame for the whether or not trivia. And with that said, that brings us to the end of the episode in our conversation. But before we go, how can people stay in touch with all the awesome work that you're doing at West Kentucky University and in the information science field?
Ashley Orehek Rossi:Yeah. I linger on social media a little bit, so if people wanted to try and follow me on social media, they could. I'm at, that's a moray. Heck Rossi. So that's Amay heck Rossi, and that's on Instagram and Twitter slash x. I do have a LinkedIn. You can search me by my name or you can email me. It's oy heck rossi@gmail.com,
Kyle David:and we'll make sure to include your social media, handles, which I love that handle by the way, and your email in the show notes for people to go and check out. With that said, thank you Ashley for joining me on the podcast, and thank you to the listener for listening to the Everything Weather Podcast, and we'll catch you on the next episode.
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