Brian Argrow Selected to Deliver 2026 AIAA Durand Lectureship for Public Service

IRISS Director Brian Argrow was selected to deliver his lecture, “Aerospace Engineering for Science and Public Safety: Aerial Robots to Explore Tornadogenesis,” during the SciTech Forum, on Jaunary 12th, 2026.

Dr. Argrow’s lecture presented 30 years of research and development of small aerial robots that continue to be deployed to increase knowledge of tornadogenesis while contributing to public safety by supporting advances in accurate and life-saving methods for tornado prediction, detection, and warnings.

In 2024, the 30-year average for tornado-related fatalities in the United States stood at 72 per year. This figure masks episodic tornado events over just the past 20 years that resulted in 126 (2008), 553 (2011), and 104 (2021) fatalities. Recent studies of tornado warning statistics indicate that from 1986 to 2011 the average tornado warning time in the United States was about 18.5 minutes but has decreased to about 15 minutes since 2011. Severe storms researchers seek to understand how storms, particularly supercell thunderstorms, create tornadoes while forecast and warning researchers seek to use that knowledge to increase tornado warning times. 

In 2010, aerospace engineers from the University of Colorado Boulder (CU) teamed with meteorologists from the University of Nebraska Lincoln (UNL) for the first intercepts of supercell thunderstorms using uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) during the “Second Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment (VORTEX-2).” Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NOAA, VORTEX-2 remains the largest study of tornadogenesis to date. The cross-disciplinary CU-UNL team has continued to advance capabilities for increasingly autonomous and collaborative small UAS deployed from highly mobile ground stations, including the 2019 Targeted Observations with Radar and UAS of Supercells (TORUS) field campaign, involving many participants from VORTEX-2. The research continues through long-term university and agency collaborations that are seeking answers to tornadogenesis—the atmospheric conditions and processes that create tornadoes.

Dr. Argrow's research covers the design and field deployment of small UAS, aero-gasdynamics, and hypersonics. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and AIAA Fellow. He received the Department of the Air Force Exemplary Civilian Service Award for service on the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board.

Brian Argrow (left) and Michael Rhodes (right) discussing storm formation on TORUS Deployment (2019).