Patrick J. Kennedy
Dates
- Existence: 1945-1995
Biography
A native of Louisville, Kennedy received his bachelor's degree at the University of Notre Dame and his master's in astrogeophysics at the University of Colorado. He joined NCAR in 1970 and worked there for 25 years. While at NCAR's Climate and Global Dynamics Division, Kennedy studied mountain waves, turbulent interactions, and the incorporation of surface-level physics into atmospheric computer models. He received the first NCAR Outstanding Performance Award for Education in 1994. Kennedy was a principal investigator in Project LEARN (Laboratory Experience in Atmospheric Science at NCAR), demonstrating classroom wizardry to 40 middle-school teachers from across the country for three consecutive summers of teacher training. He was renowned in local schools and at NCAR for his experiential teaching techniques; volunteering in Boulder elementary schools for many years doing weekly science demonstrations at a different school each year. His contributions also extended beyond national borders. He spent six to eight weeks each year teaching science to children at a Mexican orphanage and did similar volunteer work in Canada and in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Kentucky.