Biography
Amber Liggett is a meteorologist and emergency manager by education and a science and corporate communicator by training. She currently serves as a Senior Communications Specialist at FedEx Corporation and works as a consultant science writer and public speaker on weather, climate, emergency preparedness, and disaster sciences.Previously, Amber was a Communications Analyst (federal contractor) with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Program Office, a Public Information Officer at the Pennsylvania Department of Health, and a freelance broadcast meteorologist for WHTM-TV (abc27) in south-central Pennsylvania.
Amber earned both her B.S. in Meteorology and her M.S. in Emergency Management from Millersville University of Pennsylvania (MU).
She integrates the Arts into Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (S.T.E.A.M.) through her internationally-award-winning business, Amber's Amazing Animal Balloons. Through weather-themed balloon art sculptures, she highlights the role balloons play in measuring weather elements. Amber’s Amazing Animal Balloons has proudly served as a Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador since 2017.
Training, volunteering, and professional development are central to Amber’s work. In 2019, she completed both the National Emergency Management Basic Academy through the FEMA Emergency Management Institute and the American Meteorological Society (AMS) Summer Policy Colloquium. She is an active member of numerous national organizations and currently serves as Secretary and Treasurer for IAEM Region III. Since 2019, Amber has also been a long-standing member of the AMS Committee on Emergency Management, where she helps bridge the gap between weather and emergency management.
Her previous leadership roles include chairing the AMS Local Chapter Affairs Committee and serving as the Student Representative on the National Weather Association (NWA) Board of Directors. She also spent six years on the NWA Student Conference planning committee and remains an active member of the organization today.
Amber has an extensive background in research and related internships. In 2015, she participated in the Research Experience for Undergraduates at the National Weather Center in Norman, OK, studying gust front signature detection using Doppler radar and machine intelligence detection algorithms. In 2016, she was awarded the Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research & Science (SOARS) scholarship/internship, where she worked with an experimental short-term forecasting model at a NOAA lab in Boulder, CO to determine optimal methods for quantifying severe weather parameters. That same year, she received the NOAA Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship, completing her 2017 internship with the NWS Headquarters Office of Communications. Her project advanced the Weather-Ready Nation (WRN) initiative through effective communication and education to improve public awareness, safety, and preparedness related to weather, water, and climate hazards. In 2018, Amber completed her second year in the SOARS program at the NWS Denver/Boulder Weather Forecast Office, surveying WRN Ambassadors to identify outreach and educational material needs and strengthen Ambassador engagement. She continues today as a consultant delivering presentations and workshops on these topics for diverse audiences.
During graduate school, Amber served as a Graduate Assistant in the MU Center for Disaster Research & Education. In that role, she led efforts to designate MU as a StormReady University through the NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) StormReady program; co-facilitated Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) trainings; instructed Hazardous Weather Primers for CERT; co-coordinated a campus-wide Preparedness Day; and co-developed the North American Humanitarian Response Initiative virtual Resource Center. Her capstone research focused on evaluating local flood risk perceptions and the use of flood safety messaging by expert local, state, and federal meteorologists and emergency managers.
Amber Liggett is a meteorologist and emergency manager by education and a science and corporate communicator by training. She currently serves as a Senior Communications Specialist at FedEx Corporation and works as a consultant science writer and public speaker on weather, climate, emergency preparedness, and disaster sciences.Previously, Amber was a Communications Analyst (federal contractor) with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Climate Program Office, a Public Information Officer at the Pennsylvania Department of Health, and a freelance broadcast meteorologist for WHTM-TV (abc27) in south-central Pennsylvania.
Amber earned both her B.S. in Meteorology and her M.S. in Emergency Management from Millersville University of Pennsylvania (MU).
She integrates the Arts into Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (S.T.E.A.M.) through her internationally-award-winning business, Amber's Amazing Animal Balloons. Through weather-themed balloon art sculptures, she highlights the role balloons play in measuring weather elements. Amber’s Amazing Animal Balloons has proudly served as a Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador since 2017.
Training, volunteering, and professional development are central to Amber’s work. In 2019, she completed both the National Emergency Management Basic Academy through the FEMA Emergency Management Institute and the American Meteorological Society (AMS) Summer Policy Colloquium. She is an active member of numerous national organizations and currently serves as Secretary and Treasurer for IAEM Region III. Since 2019, Amber has also been a long-standing member of the AMS Committee on Emergency Management, where she helps bridge the gap between weather and emergency management.
Her previous leadership roles include chairing the AMS Local Chapter Affairs Committee and serving as the Student Representative on the National Weather Association (NWA) Board of Directors. She also spent six years on the NWA Student Conference planning committee and remains an active member of the organization today.
Amber has an extensive background in research and related internships. In 2015, she participated in the Research Experience for Undergraduates at the National Weather Center in Norman, OK, studying gust front signature detection using Doppler radar and machine intelligence detection algorithms. In 2016, she was awarded the Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research & Science (SOARS) scholarship/internship, where she worked with an experimental short-term forecasting model at a NOAA lab in Boulder, CO to determine optimal methods for quantifying severe weather parameters. That same year, she received the NOAA Hollings Undergraduate Scholarship, completing her 2017 internship with the NWS Headquarters Office of Communications. Her project advanced the Weather-Ready Nation (WRN) initiative through effective communication and education to improve public awareness, safety, and preparedness related to weather, water, and climate hazards. In 2018, Amber completed her second year in the SOARS program at the NWS Denver/Boulder Weather Forecast Office, surveying WRN Ambassadors to identify outreach and educational material needs and strengthen Ambassador engagement. She continues today as a consultant delivering presentations and workshops on these topics for diverse audiences.
During graduate school, Amber served as a Graduate Assistant in the MU Center for Disaster Research & Education. In that role, she led efforts to designate MU as a StormReady University through the NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) StormReady program; co-facilitated Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) trainings; instructed Hazardous Weather Primers for CERT; co-coordinated a campus-wide Preparedness Day; and co-developed the North American Humanitarian Response Initiative virtual Resource Center. Her capstone research focused on evaluating local flood risk perceptions and the use of flood safety messaging by expert local, state, and federal meteorologists and emergency managers.
To learn more about Amber's diverse background, see her CV.
