Regional DEWS Coordinators Join NIDIS
Regional Drought Information Coordinators Amanda Sheffield and Elizabeth Weight have joined the NIDIS team.
After working closely over the past couple of years with the Drought Early Warning System for California, Amanda this summer became the coordinator for the two-state DEWS region of both California and Nevada. Before joining NIDIS, Amanda was a postdoctoral scholar at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego with the California-Nevada Applications Program (CNAP), a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Regional Integrated Science and Assessments (RISA) program. Within CNAP’s climate portfolio Amanda worked in regional climate research and translation of drought science, including stakeholder engagement within the CA-NV DEWS. She holds a M.S. and Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science from Colorado State University and a B.S. in Synoptic Meteorology from Purdue University.
Elizabeth Weight joins NIDIS as the Regional Drought Information Coordinator for the Intermountain West and Southern Plains Drought Early Warning Systems (DEWS). To this position, she brings more than 20 years of international water management and research experience in 14 countries in Asia and Africa. Before joining NIDIS, she served as the Global Uptake Coordinator at the CGIAR’s International Water Management Institute in Sri Lanka, where she led the Institute’s engagement strategies that supported evidence-based policies and investments in 11 countries. She also led monitoring, evaluation and impact assessment for the Water, Land, and Ecosystems program, a multi-institutional research program that works with more than 450 partners in 26 countries. Elizabeth received her B.A. in International Relations from Connecticut College and Master of Environmental Management from Duke University, Environmental Economics and Policy concentration.
