Biography
Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, I have found my way to Kutztown shortly after I defended my dissertation. I have always been intrigued and fascinated by weather and climate going back to my elementary school days of chronicling weather in a notebook for science class. I went to college as an undeclared, but I knew I wanted to get involved with a science or math field. I went to Kent State for my undergraduate and studied under Tom Schmidlin and Scott Sheridan. I had all intentions of going into the National Weather Service to forecast weather, but I needed my masters degree for that so I went to Ohio State University. I studied under Jeff Rogers and Jay Hobgood while at Ohio State for my masters. I chose to stay at Ohio State and was approached by my eventual PhD advisor, Jialin Lin, to research atmospheric moisture representation in global climate models while I worked toward my PhD.
My main interests are climate change, weather forecasting, climate modeling, and ways to get students more engaged in geography through gaming.
I currently live in the Lehigh Valley with my wife, Heather, and my three children (Noah, Robyn, and Brennan). We have two cats named Rossby (after Carl Gustaf Rossby) and Bentley (after Wilson Bentley). In my spare time, I like playing Dungeons and Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, anything nature, camping, and baking. I serve as the faculty advisor to the Anime Club and the Boxing Club.
Publications
Allen, A.L. and M.A. Davis, 2023: A Seasonal Wind Climatology of The Great Lakes Region of The United States: 1990-2019. The Geographical Bulletin. 64, 1, Article 5.
Clark, M.A. and M.A. Davis, 2023: Climate Change as a Perspective: Looking Through the Lens of High School Teachers within Berks County, PA. The Middle States Geographer. 55, 25-35.
Andrews, T.R. and M.A. Davis, 2022: Shifts in Thunderstorm Occurrence and Spatial Synoptic Air Mass Classifications in the Mid-Atlantic United States, 2003-2012. The Middle States Geographer. 54, 10-18
Davis, M.A., 2022: An Overview of Environmental Themes in the Video Game Industry. The Geographical Bulletin. 63 (2), 97-108
Davis, M.A., 2022: Why Study Geography? In: Vaidya K. (eds) The Curious Academic. In press.
Davis, M.A., 2021: So An Air Parcel Walks Into the Nearest Isobar... In: Vaidya K. (eds) Teach Geography with a Sense of Humor: Why (and How to) Be a Funnier and More Effective Geography Teacher and Laugh All the Way to Your Classroom. The Curious Academic. Ebook.
Davis, M.A., 2019: Learning Geography Through Mobile Gaming. In: Brunn S., Kehrein R. (eds) Handbook of the Changing World Language Map. Springer, Cham.
Gaspich, A.M. and M.A. Davis, 2017: Variability in Pennsylvania Snow Totals, 1980-2010. The Pennsylvania Geographer. 55 (2), 6-23.
Davis, M.A., 2017: Ingress in Geography: Portals to Academic Success? Journal of Geography. 116, 2, 89-97.
Davis, M.A., K.M. Cunningham, and K.A. Soisson, 2016: Extreme Temperature and Precipitation Trends in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Geographer. 54 (1), 41-61.
