this year so much of trujillos hard work has paid off in march the association of former students presented him with a 2019 buck weirus award a prestigious accolade only awarded to 55 current students every year and this week he will walk across the stage at texas a&m and receive the degrees hes earned over four years of hard work joseph or ‘broseph as we call him to distinguish from the multiple josephs that arrived four years ago has been a joy to teach and mentor said dr don conlee instructional professor of atmospheric sciences his intellect is more than matched by his passion which is just infectious improving weather communication for all trujillos next journey is taking him about 350 miles north to the university of oklahomas masters in communication program i will be both a teaching assistant for the department of communication and a research assistant at noaas national severe storms laboratory trujillo said "fusing my love for meteorology and communications i will immerse myself in social science research focusing my time on the probabilistic hazard information project along with several bilingual science communication projects joseph is an incredible communicator in both languages conlee said i will never forget when he gave a special spanish segment daily forecast at the national meeting of the american meteorological society trujillo feels passionately that with todays technologies science can be accessible for everyone to understand with my work i hope to open more opportunities for underrepresented communities to become involved in the scientific conversation he said another experience that ignited trujillos passion for weather communication came during his freshman year internship at kxtx telemundo 39 and nbc 5 in dallas that internship really bolstered my love for meteorology because i got to see it presented both in english and in spanish he said the defining moment for me there was a tornado outbreak that happened the day after christmas one of the meteorologists was away so they called me in to help get information out via social media the outbreak lasted for about 8 hours and we were broadcasting the whole time afterwards people were thanking the meteorologists saying that they wouldnt have known if it werent for us that right there was a defining moment for me i realized i wanted to serve my community and do this for people he said its awesome to know the science but at the same time translating all of that jargon to the public is so critical incredible learning experiences at texas a&m faculty mentors in the college of geosciences have connected trujillo to amazing research opportunities and high-impact learning experiences theyve given me plenty of opportunities especially in research he said during his first two years at texas a&m trujillo conducted research with dr timothy logan assistant professor of atmospheric sciences on aerosols and for the past two years he has researched on science/risk communication with dr charles conrad professor in the texas a&m department of communication trujillo has also presented his undergraduate research at major conferences at the american meteorological society meeting in austin in january 2019 his oral presentation on "rhetoric and climate science: organizational influence on public policy related to hurricane harvey" earned honorable mention at the 14th symposium on societal applications the project became a thesis and was later published in the oaktrust digital repository through the undergraduate research scholars program at texas a&m