Northern Illinois University Sigma Xi graduate student research competition honorable mention

Northern Illinois University Most Outstanding Master's Thesis Award

American Meteorological Society

Association of American Geographers

Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society

Gamma Theta Upsilon Geography Honor Society

Changes in tornado risk and societal vulnerability leading to greater tornado impact potential

Spatiotemporal changes in conterminous US wildfire exposure from 1940 to 2010

Projected 21st century changes in tornado exposure, risk, and disaster potential

Observed and projected changes in united states tornado exposure

A Monte Carlo model for estimating tornado impacts

Recipe for disaster: How the dynamic ingredients of risk and exposure are changing the tornado disaster landscape

The expanding bull’s eye effect

Strader KYW Interview 2-19-17.mp3

Strader KYW Radio Interview #2 - 2-19-17.mp3

Strader KYW Interview -- Tornado Research Study -- 5-21-17.mp3

Villanova University was founded in 1842 by the Order of Saint Augustine. To this day, Villanova’s Augustinian Catholic intellectual tradition is the cornerstone of an academic community in which students learn to think critically, act compassionately and succeed while serving others. Villanova prepares students to become ethical leaders who create positive change everywhere life takes them.


The strength of the Villanova experience comes in part from the University’s welcoming community. All members are bonded together by a shared responsibility to uphold the ideals of Saint Augustine and let the principles of truth, unity and love guide their lives. The Villanova community helps students grow intellectually, professionally and spiritually, and challenges them to reach their full potential.


The University’s rigorous academic experience, rooted in the liberal arts, forms an environment in which students and professors are partners in learning. The Villanova community is dedicated to providing a personalized experience that fosters every student’s intellectual and spiritual well-being. As part of their education, students are encouraged to enrich their own lives by working for those in need. Through academic and service programs, students use their knowledge, skills and compassion to better the world around them.


There are more than 10,000 undergraduate, graduate and law students in the University’s six colleges—the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Villanova School of Business, the College of Engineering, the College of Nursing, the College of Professional Studies and the Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law. These colleges are the setting for an experience that develops both the heart and the mind, and creates the atmosphere where students are called to ignite change.


Villanova University is located in a suburban community 12 miles west of Philadelphia, Pa.

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Severe weather – tornadoes, hurricanes, hail, wind, blizzards, thunderstorms, floods – cause disruptions to daily life and exact a heavy toll on lives and property. A meteorologist, whose research on tornadoes includes storm chasing in “Tornado Alley” each spring, Dr. Strader is a highly knowledgeable source on all types of severe weather; the effect increasing global temperatures have on the frequency and intensity of storms; as well as the risk and disaster potential of increased population density in storm vulnerable areas. He can also discuss what scientists are working on to improve readiness for and responsiveness to severe weather events.

Geographic Information Systems

Natural Hazards 

Hazards and Society

Severe Weather

Tornadoes

Wildfires

Stephen Strader Personal Website

ResearchGate

Google Scholar Citations

At the Center of Florida’s Tornado Damage, a Retirement Community Picks up the Pieces

Expanding Bull's-Eye Effect: As Cities Grow, Severe Weather Risk Also Grows

Death in South Amplify Extreme Danger of Manufactured Homes During Severe Weather

Extreme Vulnerability in Mississippi Existed Long Before the Tornado

Opinion: The Hurricane Problem Florida Could Have Avoided

Maps Show How Millions of People Have Moved into Hurricane Ian's Path

Our tornado warning system has come a long way, but it could be better

How We Create Our Catastrophes

Tornadoes and Mobile Homes: An Inter-science Approach to Reducing Vulnerabilities and Improving Capacities for the Southeast’s Most Susceptible Population

Vital Minigrant

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Associate Professor of Geography and the Environment | College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Professor of Education; Program Coordinator, Graduate Education | Department of Education and Counseling

Student Engagement

Student Voice

Youth Activism

Urban Education

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The iPad. Hurricane Sandy. Affordable Care Act. #MeToo. Brexit. Streaming services.

Since 2010, there have been so many memorable and historic events that have shifted culture and society into unfamiliar territory around the world.

Some of Villanova's experts have put together thoughts on some of the decade's top stories that will continue to be relevant for the next ten years - and beyond.

Stephen Strader, assistant professor of Geography and the Environment Over the last decade we have seen the issue of anthropogenic or human-induced climate change shift from something discussed between select, interested scientists to the front page of the news on a daily basis. This dramatic change in importance and coverage over climate change makes complete sense given, six of the last ten years globally have been in the top ten warmest on record. Actually, very likely, if not certain, is that the last 5 years will be the hottest globally on record. The odds of that happening in naturally are very close to zero. Nowhere have the effects of a changing climate been realized more so than in the western U.S. where wildfires have wreaked havoc year after year in the 2010's. States such as California, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Washington all experienced record-breaking wildfires over the last decade. Specifically, the Camp Fire in 2018 became the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history, destroying 18,000+ homes and killing 85 people in the town of Paradise, CA.  

Additionally:
- Hurricanes Dorian, Irma, Harvey, Maria, etc. damaging entire countries (Puerto Rico and Bahamas) so much that there is question whether they will ever recover from the damaging effects. 
- The deadliest tornado season on record, 2011. Including the devastating April 27, 2011 tornado outbreak and the deadliest U.S. tornado in modern history, Joplin, MO (158 fatalities). 
- The 2011-2017 drought and water shortages in the western U.S. where California saw its worst drought in history or worst in 1,200 years. The drought killed 100+ million trees and resulted in water shortages that affected crops and caused municipalities to limit water use. 
- The record-setting rainfall and floods in locations such as Colorado, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, etc. that resulted in hundreds dead and millions of dollars in crop losses. 

If the last 10 years have taught scientists, climatologists, policy makers, and the general public anything, it’s that we have our work cut out for us if we are to reverse this trend of increasing disasters around the world. The atmosphere continues to warm and all model projections point to an progressively warmer future Earth if action is not taken. This action can’t be tomorrow or by 2025, 2050, or some other arbitrary year, it has to happen now if we want to reduce future economic and societal losses.

Yes, it’s easy to be afraid and fearful of the future when all we see as scientists and citizens is rising temperatures, deadlier disasters, and a lack of drastic climate action. Unfortunately, this action can’t be tomorrow or by 2025, 2050, or some other arbitrary year, it has to happen now given we are in a climate emergency. However, we can’t let the fear result in crippling inaction, but we have to let it motivate us to fight, not for just our futures but our children’s, grandchildren’s, and great grandchildren’s futures. Let’s give them a chance to see the world the way we used to, beautiful. 

Jerusha Conner, associate professor of Education and Counseling The latter half of this decade witnessed a resurgence of student activism, sparked by Black Lives Matter protests and the dramatic events at the University of Missouri in the fall of 2015. Highlighting 2015 as a pivotal year for student activism, the authors of the American Freshman National Norms survey deemed the 2015 freshman class “the most ambitious” group in 49 years of the survey’s administration in terms of their expectations for participating in protests, connecting to their communities, and influencing the political structure (Eagan et al., 2016: p. 7), and the numbers of freshman who report having participated in demonstrations as high school seniors has ticked up every year since. In my own research with college student activists in 2016, I found three striking trends: nearly half came to college already seeing themselves as activists; only 10% consider themselves single-issue activists (more than half identified seven or more issues their activism addressed); and a significant share were protesting their own institution’s policies or practices, but instead concerned themselves with broader social and political issues. They are what I call outward-facing activists, who use their campuses to stage and mobilize campaigns, rather than as the targets of their change efforts. In the last couple of years, we have seen activism among high school students take off, as students have staged walk outs and school strikes to protest inaction on climate change and gun violence. Although these movements may appear narrowly focused on a single issue, the students involved have intentionally advanced an intersectional perspective, which draws attention to the racialized, economic, and gendered dimensions of the multifaceted problem they are seeking to address. Digital natives, these young people have deployed the affordances of social media not only to mobilize their peers in large scale collective action, but also to attract and sustain the attention of the media, pressure business leaders and politicians, and shape public understanding of the issues.  One interesting shift with this generation of student activists is that rather than turning their backs on the system or seeking to upend it, they are focused on enhancing voter registration and turnout, especially among young people. And their efforts appear to be working. Youth turnout in the 2018 midterms was double that of 2014, and record numbers of youth are continuing to register to vote. As the decade comes to a close and the 2020 campaign season revs up, the engagement of student activists in electoral politics will be important to continue to track.  To speak with any of the experts, email mediaexperts@villanova.edu or call 610-519-5152.


Villanova Experts Reflect on the 2010s

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The United Nations Climate Panel released a grim report on September 25, with lead author and French climate scientist Valerie Masson-Delmotte warning, "Climate change is already irreversible. Due to the heat uptake in the ocean, we can't go back."  She shared (1) that seas are rising 2.5 times faster than the rate from 1900 to 1990, (2) that from 2006 to 2015, the ice melting from Greenland, Antarctica and the world's mountain glaciers has accelerated and they are now losing 720 billion tons of ice a year and (3) that marine animals are likely to decrease 15%, and catches by fisheries in general are expected to decline 21% to 24%, by the end of the century because of climate change. Villanova's Stephen M. Strader, PhD, a hazards geographer and atmospheric scientist, says because the earth is warming faster than previously thought we have to act now to curb global greenhouse gas emissions. "Unfortunately, there is a momentum to the climate system. Even if we 100% curb global greenhouse gas emissions immediately, we have committed to substantial global warming." Dr. Strader adds that an interesting note in the United Nations report is the indication that climate action is inseparable from sustainable development. The report mentions that an important aspect of climate change effects is their disproportionate impact on the poor and most vulnerable regions of the world. "Building more sustainable communities will not only reduce inequality and vulnerability," he says. "It will also help fight global climate change. They are hand in hand." "Climate change is an existential crisis to human beings everywhere, regardless of where you live," says Dr. Strader. "It is affecting and will continue to have consequences related to shelter, food and water—the basic necessities to sustain life. The lack of action by politicians, policy makers and the general public is alarming given the threat all of humanity is facing. The threat is not just 10 or 50 years from now, but today." 

United Nations Climate Panel Issues Grim Report 

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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has predicted a "near-normal" 2019 Atlantic hurricane season with nine to 15 named storms, four to eight of which could become hurricanes, including two to four major hurricanes. 

Hurricane forecasting is an imprecise science, but current research indicates several important trends regarding future tropical storms and climate change, says Stephen Strader, PhD, a severe storm specialist and assistant professor in Villanova’s Department of Geography and the Environment.

"Research has suggested that in the future there will likely be fewer tropical storms and hurricanes, but those that do occur are expected to be more intense. This is likely due to the combination of changes in wind shear (i.e., change in wind speed and direction as one goes up in the atmosphere) and warmer ocean temperatures that provide 'fuel' for tropical cyclones," says Dr. Strader.

Climate scientists also suggest that tropical storms making landfall will be more likely to "stall out" due to climate change influences on the upper-level atmospheric air pattern, he adds.

The combination of more intense tropical storms, greater rainfall rates and the propensity for these storms to stall or slow down once they make landfall will likely result in greater future flooding risk to some major U.S. cities, such as Houston, New Orleans, Tampa Bay and Miami, according to Dr. Strader.

Recent examples of this phenomenon include Hurricanes Harvey and Irma in 2017 and Florence and Michael in 2018. 

"Although NOAA has suggested a near normal tropical storm season, it only takes one devastating storm making landfall to have devastating consequences," Dr. Strader notes.




Research Suggests Future Tropical Storm Trends Related to Climate Change

Geography and the Environment professor Stephen Strader is honored as The Weather Channel's Geek of the Week.

The Weather Channel's Geek of the Week (April 2017)

Geography and the Environment professor Stephen Strader discusses his research with KYW Newsradio on why our 2017 winer was so warm.

Shrinking of polar ice caps (February 2017)

Geography and the Environment professor Stephen Strader discusses his research with KYW Newsradio on the increased effect of storm damage by the end of the century.

Increased storm damage over the next century (May 2017)

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