Along with his faculty position in the Department of Atmospheric Science, Russ serves as the Colorado State Climatologist and Director of the Colorado Climate Center. Russ Schumacher received his B.S. with majors in meteorology and humanities from Valparaiso University in Indiana in 2001. He received his M.S. in 2003 and Ph.D. in 2008 from the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University. His graduate research examined the processes that cause mesoscale convective systems to produce extreme precipitation. Russ received an Advanced Study Program Postdoctoral Fellowship from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and spent 2008-09 at NCAR in Boulder. From 2009-11, Russ was Assistant Professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A&M University. He joined the CSU faculty in August 2011.