Team

Dr. Quinton Lawton

Assistant Professor

Department of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment
Northern Illinois University

Dr. Lawton is an atmospheric scientist specializing in tropical waves, African easterly waves, and tropical cyclone formation. His research focuses on understanding the multi-scale interactions between tropical atmospheric waves and how these interactions drive extreme weather. He applies this research to tropical weather prediction through the development of diagnostics and numerical modeling experiments using the MPAS-A system. Dr. Lawton also created and maintains QTrack, an open-source Python-based African easterly wave tracker used in both research and operational settings.

Dr. Lawton was born in Houston, TX, where he became interested in tropical weather after the devastating landfall of Hurricane Ike in 2008. He went on to earn a B.S. in Meteorology from Texas A&M University in 2019 and a Ph.D. from the University of Miami in 2024. Before starting at NIU, Dr. Lawton spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher at the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research as part of the Advanced Study Program. Outside of research and teaching, he enjoys hiking, traveling, and spending time with his wife Beth and two cats (Luna and Nova).

CV  |  Google Scholar  |  ORCID  |  GitHub

Olivena Carlisle

M.S. Student

Department of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment
Northern Illinois University

Olivena joined our research team in Fall of 2026! Her research interests include extreme rainfall and flooding risk.