That's a bit of mudslinging, I think.
"Dr. Cullen was a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, CO. She has done research in the U.S. Southwest, the Middle East (Syria and Turkey), publishing on domestic and international climate topics. She is a member of the World Climate Research Program's Climate Variability (CLIVAR) Scientific Steering Group, an international project aimed at identifying, understanding, and predicting types of variability within the Earth's complex climate system. As a postdoctorate, Dr. Cullen received the prestigious NOAA Climate & Global Change Fellowship and spent two years working at the International Research Institute for Climate Prediction (IRI) where she collaborated with scientists from Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. She received a bachelor's degree in Engineering/Operations Research from Columbia University in New York City and went on to receive her doctorate in climatology and ocean-atmosphere dynamics at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University."
I think that qualifies her as an expert.
It qualifies her to study climatology and even to teach it; but the field has never been charged with forecasting future decades; this, she has apparently taken on herself and is openly biased on the side of AGW.
Still, I have cut way back on TWC use because of their special programming; I just want a quick look at the data.
"Your local weather on the 'eights'" is about the most of my viewing there now.
Reading what you just posted shows some experience in varying aspects of climatology but no dedicated concentration to historic temperature trends and the impacts that man-made or natural events have on them.
Heidi sounds like she is a bit flaky jumping all over the place from one odd topic to another. I am sure to people in the global warming crowd they see her as a hero for her efforts to study the suffering of the poor populations of the world (which Cullen seems to blame on evil industrialization from wealthy nations).