Jason Shafer, PhD: Co-Founder, President & CEO

Jay co-founded Northview with a passion to help others see the future through his eyes – to help them get smarter about weather. As an accomplished weather forecaster, Jay is passionate about inventing new technology that better connects weather risks to high-stakes storm planning decisions. Jay is also deeply interested in developing weather forecasting technology that accelerates the penetration of renewable energy. With broad experience in private sector weather applications in energy and transportation, he has observed that too often the skill of weather forecasting exceeds the sophistication of organizational intelligence to fully utilize its value.

Weather has always been central to Jay, from making his own snow plows as a kid to forecasting the impacts from nor’easters on the electric grid. Jay is also a Professor at Northern Vermont University-Lyndon (formally Lyndon State College) where he teaches the art and science of weather forecasting. Jay’s expertise is in mountain weather and winter weather. His students have attended over 25 graduate schools, worked in over 30 media markets, and have been employed at over 25 companies.

Jay may be found in Vermont’s beautiful Northeast Kingdom playing with his two children, growing garlic, running, or helping a neighbor with his tractor.

Alex Jacques, PhD: Developer

Alex gained an early passion for meteorology while growing up along coastal Maine, which led him to pursue a career in atmospheric sciences. After staying in New England for his undergraduate education at Lyndon State College (now NVU-Lyndon), Alex moved west to complete his PhD at the University of Utah. During his time in Utah, he gained interests in instrumentation, fire weather, and air quality research. This included the development of web visualization products to support field operations during the 2015 Great Salt Lake Summer Ozone Study.

Alex continues his Postdoctoral research with the University of Utah developing and supporting air quality and mesonet visualization software. Alex also serves as the development coordinator for Synoptic Data, a company founded from of the University of Utah-based MesoWest project. Alex creates processes to ingest real-time mesonet data streams so data can be disseminated to the National Weather Service, educational institutions, and the general public.

Alex contributes to Northview through the development of web-based interactive graphical and tabular products to better communicate weather risk. Alex is an avid sports fan, with the Boston Red Sox, New England Patriots, and Utah Utes being his favorite teams to follow.

Amanda Stone: Meteorologist

Amanda gained an early passion for science and the environment while spending much of her time outdoors growing up in southern Maine – winter snowstorms and summertime thunderstorms hooked her interest. This passion led her to pursue an education in atmospheric sciences at Lyndon State College (now Northern Vermont University-Lyndon). After graduating in 2017, Amanda chose to remain in the area, where she calls New Hampshire’s White Mountains home.

Amanda contributes to Northview Weather as an operational meteorologist. Her forecasting and living experience in New England allows her to be intimately familiar with weather patterns and nuances of New England weather. Amanda is an avid outdoorswoman, where hiking, biking, and skiing are her lifelong passions.

Tyler Curtis-Southard: Meteorologist

Tyler Curtis-Southard grew up on the coast of Maine where he found love for weather at an early age. He graduated from Rockland District High School in 2004 then moved to Vermont to pursue a degree in Meteorology at Lyndon State College (now Northern Vermont University-Lyndon). Tyler graduated in 2009 with a Bachelors in Atmospheric Science and an Associates in TV News Studies.

After college, he moved south and took a job in Macon Georgia as a Meteorologist and Reporter at a FOX & ABC television station. After two years in Georgia, Tyler turned west to Fort Smith Arkansas where he worked for a CBS station as a Meteorologist and produced an outdoor adventure segment. In 2015, Tyler returned home to Rockland Maine where he also works as a Meteorologist for Courier Publications, Locus Weather, and WCSH-TV. When Tyler isn’t forecasting the weather, you can often find him on an outdoor adventure. Tyler enjoys gardening, cooking, and woodworking.

Mark Ehler: Lead Developer and Machine Learning Specialist 

Mark currently leads tech development for distributed solar energy power prediction to help enable a greener electric grid.

Mark is passionate about building a sustainable and resilient energy future. His green roots run deep, from teaching farmers organic pesticide-free practices while volunteering with the Peace Corps in Nepal, building his own beehive sensors, or looking to build a better chicken coop.

As a pragmatic and responsible innovator, Mark worked to develop a farmer’s calendar app designed for subsistence farmers with recent access to modern smartphones. Krishi Guru has over 100,000 downloads and is still maintained for download on Android. For his capstone machine learning project, he developed a solar energy prediction dashboard to inform consumers considering residential renewable energy installation.

Mark has a diverse set of experiences to draw upon for creative and independent problem solving with professional experience in marketing, medicine, and machine learning. He holds a B.S. degree in Business Marketing from the University of Colorado-Boulder, was a premed student at Metropolitan State University of Denver, and attended the Flatiron School’s Data Science Bootcamp program.

On the weekends, Mark can be found trail running outside of Burlington, Vermont, tending the community garden, and waking up early for landscape photography.

Kevin Cronin, Research Associate