My name is Jeremy Benik. I am a research scientist at Bay Area Environmental Research Institute and NASA Ames Research Center. Previously, I was a graduate research assistant at San Jose State University in the [Wildfire Interdisciplinary Research Center](WIRC https://www.wildfirecenter.org/) where I worked in the wildfire modeling department under Dr. Adam Kochanski and where I received my Masters of Science. While at SJSU, my area of focus was on fire-induced circulations and how they impact fire spread. I wrote a paper on this and that can be found at: https://www.mdpi.com/2571-6255/6/9/332. I also studied rate of spread models and those results can be found in my Masters thesis: https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/etd_theses/5392/

I received my Bachelors of Science in Atmospheric Science from the University of Nevada, Reno where I worked under Dr. Neil Lareau for my undergrad thesis which analyzed the LNU complex fire (events that led up to it's ignition, the lightning strikes that started the fire, and the smoke impacts). I also received two minors in Mathematics and Geography.

While at UNR and SJSU, I was a weather forecaster (I specialized in forecasting fog) and researcher for WeatherExtreme Ltd. Feel free to check out their website and if you have any questions or are interested in their services, please email me at [email protected]

Since my current line or work involves a lot of programming, my coding language of choice is Python, but I have also used MATLAB and LaTeX quite a bit and I'm learning Fortran, C++, CSS, HTML, and javascript. In fact, my entire Masters thesis was written in LaTeX.

If you need to reach me (serious inquiries only), please email me at: [email protected] and allow a few business days for me to respond.

I have also made some commits to the WRF-SFIRE repository (https://github.com/openwfm/WRF-SFIRE) such as implementing and testing the Balbi model and implementing the 40 Scott and Burgen fuel categories and fixing some physical properties within the model.

Some fun facts about me are I'm a speedcuber (I like to solve Rubik's cubes quickly. Check out my World Cube Association profile), I enjoy running, music (I play violin and bass guitar in the Reno Video Game Symphony Orchestra, video games (I used to speedrun The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask), and I really enjoy traveling (I've been to Canada, Mexico, and Australia).