This episode of Buff Innovator Insights features Dr. Cora Randall, professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and a faculty member in the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP). We’ll follow her journey from earning her PhD in chemistry to working on the Hubble Space Telescope and, now, to leading a new NASA DRIVE center working at the leading edge of next-generation space weather prediction.
Terri Fiez
Hello, I'm your host, Terri Fiez, Vice Chancellor for Research & Innovation at the University of Colorado Boulder. Welcome to Buff Innovator Insights. This podcast features some of the most innovative groundbreaking ideas in the world. I'll also introduce you to the people behind the innovations, from how they started, to how they're changing the future.
Today, we'll meet Dr. Cora Randall, a professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, and a faculty member in the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, or LASP. She has recently been selected to lead a new center called Wave-induced Atmospheric Variability, or WAVE, which is part of NASA's DRIVE Science Center Initiative. Dr. Randall received a BA in Chemistry from the State University of New York at Purchase, and a Master's and PhD in Chemistry from the University of California Santa Cruz. Her main area of expertise is remote sensing of the Earth's middle atmosphere, with particular emphasis on the polar regions. During today's podcast, we'll hear about how her early interest in chemistry and spectroscopy evolved into expertise in remote sensing and atmospheric science. Her personal and professional factors aligned to bring her to CU Boulder, to work on the Hubble Space Telescope, and her current role as a lead of the NASA DRIVE Center, working at the leading edge of next generation space weather prediction. Let's meet Dr. Cora Randall.
Hi, Cora. Thanks for joining me today for this discussion.
Dr. Cora Randall
Sure, happy to.
Terri Fiez
So, you had a really unique upbringing, with a family of 13 kids. What was that like?
Dr. Cora Randall
It was great. I really liked having so many siblings. So, I have five brothers and seven sisters. There was always somebody around. So, I always had friends, companions to play with. It did get crowded sometimes. We didn't have that huge of a house. So, for instance, I actually shared the bottom bunk of a bunk bed with one of my sisters, from, I guess, when I was in kindergarten through third grade. So, it was crowded, but we're a very close family. So, we just had a lot of fun. And, I guess one of the great things is that, having people to play with all the time. One of the things that maybe is a little unusual is we used to play school. And, we had so many people in our family that we could actually do that. And some of my older brothers and sisters would act as teachers, and the rest of us would be going to school, so, we would be the students. When I got a little older, I could be the teacher. We had some desks that were left over from an elementary school that we had inherited. So, we actually even kind of set up a classroom in our basement. It was just a lot of fun.
Terri Fiez
That's great. And where were you in the mix?
Dr. Cora Randall
So, I am sixth oldest, so pretty much a middle child.
Terri Fiez
That's great. Now, what part of the country did you grow up in?
Dr. Cora Randall
So, I was born in New York, in just north of New York City. Only lived there for about a year, and then we moved to the northern part of New York. This was just because my dad, who worked at food processing plants, he got a new job. So we moved up north, and then after four years or so, he got another new job, and this was in Southern Michigan. So, we moved to a town called St. Joe. Lived there for five years, and then in the summer between third and fourth grade, I moved to Indianapolis, again, because my dad got a new job. And, I lived there until I was 18 and left for college.
Terri Fiez
What were some of your favorite subjects in school?
Dr. Cora Randall
Well, music was always a big part of my life. So, although these weren't the most academic subjects, I really liked band and orchestra. I played woodwinds, mostly clarinet and saxophone. If we're talking just strictly academic classes, I would say my favorite class was a 10th-grade algebra class. And, that was partly because we were taught logic in algebra, and I just thought it was fascinating learning logic. And then, at that time, we didn't have a lot of computer programming. But for that particular class, we actually had a unit on computer programming, and that's why he had been teaching us logic first. And then that went into the computer coding. And, I just loved learning how to code. It seemed then, and frankly, it still does, just like you're solving puzzles all day long. So, I had a lot of fun with that.
Terri Fiez
What kind of extracurricular activities did you participate in throughout school?
Dr. Cora Randall
One of the main ones, I guess, was athletics, and in particular, running. So, and that actually is still a really big part of what I do. So, I ran track in junior high and high school. I'm sure I would have run cross country, but at the time, they didn't have cross-country for girls. So, that was a big thing, was running. And, of course, my... It was probably because my dad got us into it when I was so young, and I just kept it up. I can actually remember one time, running around the track with my dad. This was in seventh grade, I think. No, it was in fifth grade, and I can just remember a man who was running around the track at the same time, and he stopped us, and he said, "I want to see you in the Olympics someday." So anyway, it was just fun. Music and running, they were probably the big extracurricular activities that I did.
Terri Fiez
Sounds like you kept pretty busy.
Dr. Cora Randall
Yes.
Terri Fiez
So then, when you started to think about college, were your parents supportive of you going to college? And how did you decide where to go?
Dr. Cora Randall
Yeah, my parents were extremely supportive. There was really never a question as to whether I would go to college. My five siblings older than I, they all went to college. So, when I was looking for colleges, I actually didn't know what I was going to major in, because I was choosing between music, and then also something like a science or math, primarily because those would be good careers. So, I applied to a few different colleges, and the one I actually ended up with was the State University of New York at Purchase, which was a small college, but it really emphasized the fine arts, music and theater. But they also said, "Yeah, but you can also combine that with other academics." And so, I just decided to go there. And my parents really thought it would be good for me to move away from home. And so, that's why I chose the college in New York.
Terri Fiez
So they kick the little bird out of the nest.
Dr. Cora Randall
They kicked me out of the nest, yes. It was really hard, actually. I didn't enjoy college, I have to say, for the most part, just because I was so homesick with it. Except for the one year where I had a boyfriend, and then it was just fine.
Terri Fiez
Okay. So when you got to college, how did you choose your major?
Dr. Cora Randall
So, that's an interesting story. I wanted to graduate in three years, instead of four, which some of my siblings had already done that or were on their way to doing that. And so, when I met with my advisor, I said, "How can I get out of here in three years?" And this advisor, it was just by chance. He was a chemistry professor. And he said, "Oh. Well, I can work out a schedule for you to get out in three years, if you major in Chemistry." And I said, "Oh, well, okay." I didn't know if I wanted to do science or math or music, but chemistry sounded fine. So, he mapped out a schedule where I could graduate in three years. I actually did not graduate in three years, because I had to do a senior project. So, I ended up not graduating in three years. But in fact, that last year, I was able to do a lot of research, which actually gave me a head start, then, on graduate school, which at the time, I didn't know I was going to go to, but it actually worked out well in the end.
Terri Fiez
Yeah. You had a unique situation with your advisor, where you followed him during a sabbatical to do research. Talk about that, in your senior year.
Dr. Cora Randall
Right. So, this professor who was this advisor who I met with on the very first day, he decided to go on sabbatical for my senior year and asked me if I would like to go with him, so that I could do my senior project. And he was going on sabbatical at the University of California Santa Cruz. And I had never been west of Indianapolis before, so I said, "Yeah, that would be wonderful to spend my senior year in California." So, when we went to Santa Cruz, we were in a particular research group. And that research group used to, every year, would run a race called Bay to Breakers in San Francisco. It's an eight- mile running race. And, one year, we were running that, and this advisor had his wife's brother in town. And his wife's brother is now my husband.
Terri Fiez
So, you're forever tied to your advisor that you met your freshman year in college.
Dr. Cora Randall
Absolutely, forever tied. And it's great. So, he is now my brother-in-law, and it's wonderful.
Terri Fiez
Oh, you went to do a research at UC Santa Cruz, and then got sucked in to doing a Master's and a doctorate degree. Do you want to talk about that?
Dr. Cora Randall
Sure. Yeah. So, I really did not know what I was going to do with my life after college. I knew that, okay, I'm majoring in chemistry, so this is presumably setting me up for a good career. But then, during my senior year, the professor who led the research group, he just came up to me one day, and he said, "If you'd like to come to graduate school here, we'll give you a research assistantship and a teaching assistantship, so twice the pay, at the same time, and you don't even have to take the GREs or apply to graduate school. We'll just admit you." And, I listened to that, and I said, "Wow, that sounds like a really great opportunity." So I said, "Sure, I'll come to graduate school." And, I was enjoying it. So, I just continued and got my PhD. And so, I just kind of fell into it. And, I'm very glad I did.
Terri Fiez
And what was your research on?
Dr. Cora Randall
So, the research at that point was, it was really biophysics. So, we was in the chemistry department, but what I was doing for my PhD research was studying, essentially, protein folding with laser spectroscopy. So, we would use lasers to probe biological molecules to see how they moved. One of the molecules was rhodopsin, which is a molecule in your eye. It's responsible for your night vision. And so, we would be trying to look at what happens to that molecule when light first hits your eye, what are the very first things, really, in nanoseconds, after light hits your eye.
Terri Fiez
So then, how did you finally end up in Boulder?
Dr. Cora Randall
So, I told the story about how I met my husband-to-be at a running race in San Francisco. Okay. So he was visiting his sister, who was my advisor's wife at the time. But he was visiting from Colorado. Okay. Well, after we decided to get married, I decided to look for a job in Colorado, in Boulder, in particular, because that's where Glenn, my husband, lived at the time, and we still do. He is a wilderness landscape photographer, and he emphasizes Colorado. So, I just looked for jobs in Boulder, and there was an ad in Science magazine for somebody to work at the university at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, which I'm affiliated with now, to work on the Hubble Space Telescope. It was on the particular instrument called the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph. They needed somebody who knew something about spectroscopy. And it was also to work on studies of comets. Okay. I didn't know anything about comets. I knew very, very little about astronomy, but I knew something about spectroscopy. So, I went ahead and applied for the position, and fortunately, was selected. So, I became a research associate at LASP, at that point.
Terri Fiez
And then, you had an experiment that you were a part of on the Hubble Space Telescope. Tell us about that. And then, what happens when that's done?
Dr. Cora Randall
So, the Hubble Space Telescope, the way it works, it has a number of different instruments in it. And, when I came to Boulder, actually, the Hubble Space Telescope hadn't even been launched yet, but it was close to being launched. After it was launched, the instrument that I was working on, this Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph, or GHRS, it worked for about four years. And then, they decided to take it out of the telescope, and replace it with a newer instrument. And that's pretty much how the Hubble Space Telescope works. It has a set of instruments. And then after a few years, one or more of the instruments are taken out, and then replaced. It's one of the few satellites that the astronauts could actually go and work on.
But, just as fortune would have it, there was another team of scientists who needed somebody with my expertise in spectroscopy, or in other words, in looking at how light interacts with matter. They needed somebody with that expertise on their team. And this was a team of scientists who were working on an Earth-orbiting satellite that looked at the Earth's atmosphere. So, they asked me to join them. One of the scientists was at the University of Colorado. The instrument itself, that was being run out of the Naval Research Lab. But, in any case, they asked me to join that team. And I've basically been working on Earth atmospheric science ever since then.
Terri Fiez
Yeah. And then another transition... You transitioned, I think, in 2006, to a faculty role, where previously, you were a full-time researcher. When you transitioned and you started teaching, what are some of your favorite classes to teach?
Dr. Cora Randall
Yeah. I mean, I've taught classes in atmospheric chemistry, weather, climate controversies. I really liked actually the climate controversy class. It is a 4,000-level class, so senior level class. But my favorite class is a class that I now teach every year. It's a first year seminar, so it's part of the university's first year seminar program. I call it Stratospheric Explorations. So, the idea of this class, it's, again, it's for freshmen, and it's not necessarily for science majors. It's a way that freshmen students can explore what their interests might be. The general topic of the class is stratospheric science, so basically, it's, looking at the ozone hole.
Ozone depletion is very tied up with climate change. It's definitely not the same thing, and I always have to make sure the students realize, they are not the same thing. But there are relations between them. So in terms of the topic, it's stratospheric, atmospheric science. But at the same time, this is a class where I'm trying to also show students a bit of what's it like to be a college student. What are the expectations for college? I try to help them with writing. I try to help them with some of the skills, like teaching them a little bit of computer coding. And, it's a small class, so I do get some one-on-one interactions with students, which I really love.
Terri Fiez
So you went from playing school to being a real professor teacher. That's great.
Dr. Cora Randall
That's right. Yes. I guess I don't usually put the two together, but that's exactly it. Yes.
Terri Fiez
So you were recently funded to lead a NASA-funded program. I think you call it WAVE. Can you tell us about this research, and where you are in it, and what you hope to achieve?
Dr. Cora Randall
Sure. This is a new program that NASA has just started in the last year. It's a program where they are starting some interdisciplinary science centers. So, WAVE is one of the science centers. And the idea of this program is to bring together diverse teams of interdisciplinary scientists, in order to solve really grand challenge problems. So, the problem that my center is working on is trying to understand how waves in the atmosphere transfer momentum and energy throughout the atmosphere and the ionosphere. What I mean by that is, the part of the atmosphere that... It's charged, so it has ions in it, and that's why it's called the ionosphere. So, how this transfer of momentum and energy actually affects how the atmosphere and ionosphere respond to space weather. So, if I could just give you an example, wind flowing over the Rocky Mountains. That produces waves. In fact, you can actually see the clouds that are formed because of these waves. They're called wave clouds or lenticular clouds.
When the wind flows over the mountains, they generate these waves. And then the waves travel up through the atmosphere. And they can then cause disturbances, as they pass through the atmosphere. And then as they break, they'll deposit their momentum and energy that they're carrying, and that will cause more disturbances. And you have a whole cascade of effects that happen when these waves move through the atmosphere. And they can change things like the density of the atmosphere, or the composition of the atmosphere, or the temperature of the atmosphere. And as you change things like that in the atmosphere, that then can affect the way things like signals from satellites that maybe are global positioning satellites, GPS. If the atmosphere changes, particularly the ionosphere, if that changes, then that can change the way signals are transmitted. And, that of course then can disrupt communications and cause all sorts of problems for society.
Terri Fiez
So, through this research that you're doing, how will it ultimately help with the fidelity of GPS signals and other forms of communication like that?
Dr. Cora Randall
Yeah. So, in order to design the proper technology, you really need to know, how is the atmosphere, how is the ionosphere going to change? What are the variations in it that might affect your signals? And so, you have to know how to predict how the atmosphere and ionosphere are going to change. Right now, we are not good at predicting that, because we have not put the effects of these waves properly into the models.
Terri Fiez
Great. So, thinking about your overall career, what are you most proud of, and what would you like your legacy to be?
Dr. Cora Randall
Yeah, that's a big question. Okay. So, I've been mostly involved in three areas of research in atmospheric science: the depletion of stratosphere [ozone], so meaning the ozone hall, the effects of energetic electrons and protons from the sun and magnetosphere on the Earth's atmosphere, and also polar mesospheric clouds, which are clouds that are 50 miles above the Earth's surface. So, overall, I'm hoping that I'm making contributions that are leading to a deeper understanding in all of those specific areas. But maybe in the larger picture, what I really hope is that I'm making an impact on how we, the scientists, but also the society at large, understand our atmosphere as a single connected system.
So this is why the WAVE program essentially brings everything together. Something that changes one part of the atmosphere, whether it's something like a thunderstorm, a hurricane, waves over the mountains, or an anthropogenic human-caused effect, something that changes one part of the atmosphere can also impact parts of the atmosphere that are far away. I'm hoping that that really can have an impact on how we understand all of those connections. I've also spent a lot of time in my career on service, [Active-Es]. As an educator, I guess what I hope is that I'm serving as an inspiring role model for students, regardless of their major area of study. That's, I think, why I'm so excited about teaching this first year seminar.
Terri Fiez
Well, I'm inspired. Does that count?
Dr. Cora Randall
Thank you.
Terri Fiez
So final question, as you think about the next decade or two, what are you optimistic about? And what is your hope for the future of the work that you do and the breakthroughs that will be found?
Dr. Cora Randall
Right. So, maybe starting at the more narrow part of that, which I think is just the hope for my own fields of work. The real hope I think is that, we will become better and better at informing decision-makers and the general population, just about how natural forces and anthropogenic or human-caused activities can have global impacts on both weather and climate, both at the surface, which is where, of course, most of us experience it directly, but also at the edge of space, which is where this, say, communication with satellites comes more into it, and everything in between. The Earth, it really is, we have only one atmosphere. So, anything that we do, at one point, is going to be communicated to other places in the atmosphere. I'm hoping that that area of research will take off more and more in the next decade, and really come to the point where we can much better inform decision-makers about different policies that need to be made.
And also, the general public about things that we think they should be supporting. But in terms of, maybe more generally, I think the thing that I'm most optimistic about right now is increasing diversity in science. It's really important that we have a wide range of people doing science, asking the questions, lending their perspectives, to how to answer those questions. I am hopeful and very optimistic that we are going to be bringing in a much more diverse population of students into the fields of study, and then going on up through the professional ranks, so that we have a very much more diverse population looking at some of these problems.
Terri Fiez
Well, thank you, Cora, for this very enlightening conversation. It's been a real treat to talk to you today.
Dr. Cora Randall
Well, thanks for inviting me. This has been fun.
Terri Fiez
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Dr. Cora Randall, professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, and a faculty member in LASP. To learn more about Dr. Randall, or for more Buff Innovator Insights episodes, visit colorado.edu/rio/podcast. I'm your host and Vice Chancellor for Research & Innovation at CU Boulder, Terri Fiez. Thanks for listening to this episode of Buff Innovator Insights.
