Summary: <a href="http://www.cicero.uio.no/en/employee/35/jana-sillmann" target="_blank">Jana Sillmann</a> has carved out a career working on understanding and predicting climate extremes — heat waves, heavy rainfall, atmospheric rivers. What combination of factors controls the occurrence of extremes, particularly in a changing climate? Jana and Mike hash through the underlying science — including the agonizingly slow pace of model development — and how society is affected by and responds to extremes. Jana’s background and pathway to her current position are equally fascinating: an idyllic childhood in communist East Germany, with mom teaching construction; exchange student in rural North Dakota, hosted by an accordion virtuoso; grad school in the US; realizing that a career with computers and coffee was preferable to field work; chance exposure to an inspirational talk by <a href="http://www.geomar.de/en/mitarbeiter/fb1/me/mlatif/" target="_blank">Mojib Latif</a>; a PhD from the Max Planck in Hamburg; four years in Canada with people like <a href="https://www.pacificclimate.org/about-pcic/people/francis-zwiers" target="_blank">Francis Zwiers</a>; leaving Canada in response to the anti-science politics of the time (sound <a href="http://forecastpod.org/index.php/2016/09/16/scott-st-george-on-tree-rings/" target="_blank">familiar</a>?); finally, moving to what sounds like a fabulous position at <a href="http://www.cicero.uio.no/en" target="_blank">CICERO </a>in Norway, where, remarkably, society actually seems to fully support women in science. And the ideal science environment? A sprinkle of Norwegian funding for individual academics, a bit of German support for postdocs and grad students, and a splash of Canadian IT investment.<br> <br> Music from the album Encounters by Metastaz <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/" target="_blank">CC-BY-NC 4.0</a>. Includes the tracks Hashashin, Vampire, and Girl and Assassin.<br> <br> <a href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http%3A%2F%2Fforecastpod.org%2Findex.php%2F2017%2F03%2F27%2Fjana-sillmann-climate-extremes%2F&via=MWClimateSci" class="twitter-share-button">Tweet</a><br>
