Erik Crosman, Ph.D.
Assistant Department Head
Assistant Professor of Environmental Science
Office: Natural Sciences Building, Room 343
Email: etcrosman@wtamu.edu
Phone: 806-651-2294
Professional Profile
Dr. Crosman joined the Department of Life, Earth and Environmental Sciences (LEES) in August 2019. He received a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Utah in 2011 and was previously a research assistant professor at the University of Utah from 2015-2019.
Teaching and Related Service
Dr. Crosman currently teaches 9 courses and 4 laboratories: Fundamentals of Air Quality, Modeling Earth and Environmental Systems, Oceanography, Introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Graduate-level GIS, Numerical Methods in Environmental Science, Environmental Sampling and Interpretation, Undergraduate Seminar and Graduate Seminar. Dr. Crosman received a certificate in Effective College Instruction from the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE) and the American Council on Education in May 2021. Dr. Crosman is a member of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and has chaired several conferences and has served on a number of working groups for satellite remote sensing, Olympic winter games weather forecasting, and air quality modeling. He is currently a member of the AMS Mountain Meteorology Scientific and Technological Activities Commission (STAC) Committee. He has published more than 33 (8 first author) peer-reviewed journal articles and presents regularly at scientific conferences.
Research and Creative Activity
Dr. Crosman's research interests include air quality, remote sensing, weather modeling and weather model evaluation and applications, extreme weather and arid land and playa surface meteorology, boundary-layer flows and transport, and fire weather. Recent research in West Texas includes satellite and in situ observations of pollution in the Permian Basin of West Texas and Eastern New Mexico, studying extreme heat and complex terrain meteorology in Palo Duro Canyon State Park, and investigating playa lake surface area from the Sentinel-2A/B Satellites. Global-scale research interests include weather modeling, cold air pool meteorology and air quality, and satellite-derived lake temperature retrievals. Dr. Crosman is a member of the the AQUARIUS (Air QUAlity Research In the western US) working group that is planning a major air quality and meteorology field campaign across the western US in 2024.