The Short Version: What AI can, and can't, tell us about the weather

A woman in a white shirt sits at a laptop in a darkened computer lab with colorfully illuminated machines in the background.

As associate director of the Atmospheric Sciences Research Center, Kara Sulia runs the xCITE Lab focused on applying AI and machine learning to make weather data useful to people who need it. (Photo by Patrick Dodson)

ALBANY, N.Y. (Dec. 4, 2025) — In this week's final fall episode of The Short Version, Kara Sulia of UAlbany's Atmospheric Sciences Research Center talks about how artificial intelligence can help us see weather differently and what she doesn't yet trust it to understand about the complex physical forces driving the atmosphere.

Sulia, who directs ASRC's xCITE Lab focused on AI and machine learning, also reflected on the increasing centrality of computer science to the work she and her students do and to other scientific fields more generally. So much so that she returned to the classroom to get a degree in it.

If you missed any, all previous episodes of the The Short Version are available on Simplecast and on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Amazon Music.

This season also included conversations on Nobel Prize-winning chemistry, the major cybersecurity threat few people are talking about, what the next generation of computers can learn from the human brain, and how aspiring social workers at UAlbany are preparing for difficult conversations in the field.

The Short Version will return weekly in mid-January with conversations on the origins of money, what fruit fly brains can teach us about how humans see the world, spooky art and what it means to feel like you belong at a university in 2026.