We are excited to welcome Jacob Genuise to the Climate Impacts Group team! Jacob is joining us as an Engagement Climatologist with the Washington State Climate Office. 

Jacob is passionate about ensuring that everyone can access, understand, and interact with high-quality climate information, tools, and data in meaningful ways. Actionable climate information is more than just about understanding climate science: it invites folks to make better planning decisions, build capacity, and share their own knowledge and understanding with others.

Jacob is a meteorologist by training and earned a B.S. from the University of Oklahoma School of Meteorology in 2021. He has worked on local government climate resilience and outreach programs, pollinator field work campaigns in U.S. National Parks, international youth climate advocacy work, road and aviation weather forecasting, and in-situ weather and climate station maintenance and data quality assurance. 

We asked Jacob two questions to get to know him better–read his answers below!

Q: What makes you feel most excited about your work in climate resilience?
What I love about this topic is that it is universal. Everyone is connected deeply to their environment. It’s true no matter where you are. What really interests me now working with the Washington State Climate Office is that the Office has a really cool role in providing specific information about local concerns and impacts. So often the climate information we hear is at a global scale, but translating the science to something that is localized for the people who need it is really exciting and allows people to understand the information more clearly.

Q: What is your favorite way to enjoy nature?
I’m from North Texas and we don’t have many big trees around. You might see a grove of bushes or small trees and that’s pretty much it, so I feel like I have been chasing dense forests my entire life. I’ve lived in Colorado and Utah, as well, and the alpine forests in both states have their own kind of magic. My time in the trees has taught me just how complex, interconnected, and fragile our world is, and how precious some quiet, reflective time in a forest can be. The vast forests of the PNW inspire me to better understand both the threat climate change poses to our natural world and the role we all play in protecting these beautiful places.

Please join us in giving a warm welcome to Jacob!