Elizabeth Austin is CEO and Founder of WeatherExtreme Ltd., a research and consulting firm.
Biography
Austin founded WeatherExtreme Ltd. in 1994. She has held professor/research positions at the Desert Research Institute, Inc. and Sierra Nevada College, a four-year, private college in Incline Village, Nevada. She currently holds a Professorship at the University of Nevada, Reno’s Atmospheric Sciences Department. Austin has been an active member of the National Weather Association for many years, she is an active member of the American Meteorological Society, has served on many AMS Committees and was Chair of the Board of the Certified Consulting Meteorologists. She is currently a member of the AMS Executive Council and President of the Association of Certified Meteorologists.
Career
Austin is the recipient of a Fulbright Senior Specialist award at the Laboratoire de Physique de l’Atmosphère, CNRS, Universitè de La Rèunion, Rèunion Island, France and the distinguished teaching award at the four-year Sierra Nevada College in Incline Village Nevada. She is the chief scientist for the Perlan Project to fly a manned glider to 100,000 feet. Her areas of specialty include forensic meteorology, aviation meteorology, mountain weather, mesoscale atmospheric modeling, cloud and ice physics, education, and stratospheric mountain waves. Austin has appeared on-air all over the world, lectured and taught courses and seminars on weather and climate all over the world. Austin’s forensic meteorology experience has ranged from civil to criminal cases including a double-murder, death-penalty case; to State and Federal cases; to foreign court cases. She has worked on well over 1,500 cases ranging from aviation, wildfires, auto accidents, agriculture, kite-surfing, boating, equipment malfunctions, avalanches, skiing accidents, and tornadoes.
Author
Austin’s book, Treading on Thin Air, was released, and is published by Pegasus Books.
Awards and honors
American Meteorological Society Fellow : Fellows shall have made outstanding contributions to the atmospheric or related oceanic or hydrologic sciences or their applications during a substantial period of time. New Fellows are elected from not more than two-tenths of one percent of all AMS members
Fulbright Senior Specialist, Laboratoire de Physique de l’Atmosphère, CNRS, Universitè de La Rèunion, Rèunion Island, France
Distinguished Teaching Award, Sierra Nevada College
First Place, Peter B. Wagner Memorial Scholarship, Atmospheric Sci. Center, Desert Research Institute
Excellence in Teaching, Sierra Nevada College, Elected Member
Professional activities
American Meteorological Society Executive Council Elected Member
President, National Council of Industrial Meteorologists, January 2017 – January 2019.
President-Elect, National Council of Industrial Meteorologists-Association of Certified Meteorologists, June 2015 – January 2019
WeatherExtreme Ltd. named a NOAA-Weather Ready Nation Ambassador, 2014 – Present.
Member of advisory committee for Thishan D. Karandana G., Ph.D. Candidate, Atmospheric Sciences Department, University of Nevada, Reno., 2017 – Present.
Austin currently resides in Incline Village, Lake Tahoe, Nevada, with her husband, former helicopter and jet pilot, photographer and filmmaker, Alan Austin and their thirteen-year-old son, Evan. She is the daughter of Award-winning film composer, Patrick Williams
