Dr. Jennifer Collins is a Professor in the School of Geosciences at the University of South Florida. Her research focuses on weather and climate and their impacts on society. As a hurricane researcher, Dr. Collins is interested in the interaction between large-scale climatic patterns such as the El Nio - Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Madden - Julian Oscillation and seasonal and intraseasonal patterns of tropical cyclone activity in multiple oceanic basins. She is currently studying the environmental factors influencing the interannual and intraseasonal variation of hurricane activity in the eastern North Pacific and Atlantic oceans. As well as her work in the physical sciences she also works in the social sciences as she examines human behavior relating to hurricane evacuation, with recent papers on Hurricane Matthew and Irma, and research related to hurricane evacuation decision-making in Florida as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands during COVID-19, and the role COVID-19 played in evacuations relating to Hurricanes Laura, Sally, Ida, and most recently Ian. In addition to her hurricane work, Dr. Collins works in other areas related to weather, climate, and hazards. She has worked closely on projects with the National Weather Service involving tornadoes and fog. In addition, she collaborates with international researchers and works in the area of climate change. In addition to numerous published papers, she has authored a book on Florida Weather and Climate, and co-edited other books on hurricanes and climate change, and hurricane risk. She has been Principal Investigator on the Weather, Climate, and Society Research Experience for Undergraduate Program. She is or has been Co-Pi on three other REU Site Proposals: 1) Water Sustainability in the Environment: Improving the Sustainable use of Water through Interdisciplinary Research; 2) Program in Interdisciplinary Approaches to Climate Change Adaptation Research and Training (PIACCART); 3) Making Waves: Science Communication and Interdisciplinary Ocean Research Experiences at USF. She is also a recipient of a NOAA Vortex award. She works closely with graduate and undergraduate students on numerous grants from NOAA and NSF in particular. Dr. Collins was named both American Association of Geographers (AAG) Fellow and American Meteorological Society (AMS) Fellow, is an officer and Past-President of the West Central Florida Chapter of the American Meteorological Society, former National Councilor of the Association of American Geographers, and former Chair of the Climate Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers. Dr. Collins is also the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including the Geoscience Division (GeoCUR) of the Council on Undergraduate Research Mentoring Award (2020), American Association of Geographers (AAG) Distinguished Scholarship Honors (2024), AAG E. Willard and Ruby S. Miller Award (2020), AAG Harm J. de Blij Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Geography Teaching (2020), and the American Meteorological Society (AMS) Edward N. Lorenz Teaching Excellence Award (2019). She is also Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS), the American Meteorological Society, and the American Association of Geographers.