Jake Campbell

What attracted you to do your degree at Mason? 

Proximity was a big part of what attracted me to Mason as I was living in Arlington, VA at the time. It allowed me to keep my job for almost a year after starting the program which was a huge plus. I also knew two students that went through the Climate Dynamics PHD program and had great things to say about it! 

What have you been doing since you graduated from Mason? Where are you working now? 

I got lucky getting a job with SAIC, contracting for NASA, just a few days after presenting my thesis research. I am an Atmospheric Modeling Programmer and I work on NASA's GEOS Global Climate Model - testing/validation/documentation/etc. 

What were your favorite experiences while studying at Mason? 

I attended from 2020-2022 so the Covid-19 pandemic really put a damper on a lot of activities, but I really enjoyed the opportunities to go to class, when safe, and see live experiments when things opened back up. I also worked as a TA teaching a climate change course to undergrads. Even though I had a lot of education in this subject, teaching it to others really solidified my grasp on anything that I was not clear on.  

I was a part of GMU’s Climate Consensus chapter, and I really enjoyed one event that was held in Arlington - we developed simple experiments to illustrate the ways climate change is occurring in addition to a fun jeopardy style game for the public to learn about the facts surrounding climate change. Finally, I was able to work for NOAA in the William Lapenta internship program in 2021. I worked on the Wave Watch III model, converting scripts from MATLAB to Python and seeing the inner workings of the model was fascinating. I would not have had this opportunity without my connections and knowledge gained at GMU. 

Climate Science MS

Class: Summer 2022