Ángel F. Adames-Corraliza

So in Puerto Rico, we cannot evacuate from hurricanes because we're on an island.

So we had to kind of weather the hurricane.

So we were up all night and I just remember the winds roaring and the house shaking.

My family had to put these like wooden panels to protect the windows and the doors.

And I remember like the wind just hitting those those doors.

And that really left an impression on me.

I was 10, so I was a child.

I couldn't believe that something so powerful and destructive was in nature's arsenal.

Maria was a life-changing experience.

Like, I was not able to contact my family for weeks.

It was kind of like a grieving moment.

Like, nobody in my immediate family passed away from Maria, but it almost, it was like something died.

I was already like a dedicated tropical meteorologist trying to understand how humidity, circulation and rain interacted with one another.

But I felt like this bigger desire to really want to understand what are the big driving forces?

What is it that causes?

tropical weather to tick.

And so I felt this drive to serve my community even more.

Like I wanted to be able to go back to Puerto Rico or go to any other community that's in the tropics and be able to tell people like these are the things that matter.

These are the things that drive weather and climate in the tropics.

These are the things that you need to pay attention to.