Appendix C
Biographical Sketches of Committee Members
Steven F.Clifford (Chair) is a senior research scientist emeritus at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He was formerly director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Environmental Technology Laboratory. One of his research goals is to develop a global observing system using ground-based, airborne, and satellite remote sensing systems to better observe and monitor the global environment and use these observations as input to global air-sea circulation models for improving forecasts of weather and climate. He was the recipient of the 1998 Meritorious Presidential Rank Award. He is a fellow of the Optical and Acoustical Societies of America, a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and a member of the American Physical Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society, The National Academy of Engineering, and the National Research Council’s Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate. He received his Ph.D. in engineering science from Dartmouth College.
Richard E.Carbone is a senior scientist at the Mesoscale and Microscale Meteorology Division of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. He was a pioneer in the creation of advanced atmospheric observing systems and has made major contributions to the understanding of stormy weather. As lead scientist (1994–1999) for the U.S. Weather Research Program, he led the U.S. efforts to improve prediction of disruptive weather and to understand its impacts. He also developed and currently leads the World
Weather Research Programme, aimed at improving prediction of and societal response to high-impact weather. Mr. Carbone’s most recent work includes the search for broad-scale connections among thunderstorms to help better predict the multiday rainfall episodes that drench the heartland of North America each summer. He received his bachelor’s degree in meteorology and oceanography at New York University and completed his master’s degree at the University of Chicago.
Kelvin Droegemeier is Regents’ Professor of Meteorology at the University of Oklahoma and director of the Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms. Under his leadership, the Center pioneered the explicit numerical prediction of intense local weather and developed a forecast system that in 1997 won two international prizes. This technology was applied to commercial aviation in a 3-year partnership with American Airlines and was later commercialized. Dr. Droegemeier’s research interests lie in thunderstorm dynamics and predictability, data assimilation, computational fluid dynamics, and aviation weather. He is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society and a member of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research Board of Trustees, and he serves as an expert witness on commercial airline accidents. He received his Ph.D. in atmospheric science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
James Evans is a senior research staff member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory and a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. He is currently the leader for research and development for the Corridor Integrated Weather System, which is a decision support system designed to reduce en-route system delays due to convective weather. Previously, he was leader of the Lincoln Weather Sensing Group. He led the Lincoln teams that developed the Integrated Terminal Weather System (which provides real-time weather decision support for terminal areas) and the Terminal Doppler Weather Radar. His research interests include weather information systems and their use in air transportation facilities, meteorology, weather impacts on surface transportation, communications, and radar and aviation system analysis. Dr. Evans served on the National Research Council’s Panel on the Assessment of NEXRAD Coverage and Associated Weather Services. He received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
J.Michael Fritsch is a distinguished professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University. His research interests include convective
storms, extratropical and tropical cyclones, mesoscale analysis and forecasting, and numerical weather prediction. Dr. Fritsch previously served on the National Research Council’s Committee on Meteorological Analysis, Prediction, and Research and the Panel on Mesoscale Research. He is a member of the National Weather Association and received his Ph.D. from Colorado State University.
John McCarthy of Aviation Weather Associates in Costa Mesa, California was formerly the manager for scientific and technical program development at the Naval Research Laboratory in Monterey. Previously, Dr. McCarthy served as special assistant for program development to the director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. Prior to that position, he served as the Director of the Research Applications Program at NCAR, where he directed research associated with aviation weather hazards, including NCAR activities associated with the Federal Aviation Administration Aviation Weather Development Program, the FAA Terminal Doppler Weather Radar Program, and a national icing/winter storm research program. Dr. McCarthy was the principal meteorologist associated with the development of the FAA Wind Shear Training Aid. He is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society. Dr. McCarthy received his Ph.D. in geophysical sciences from the University of Chicago.
Cynthia Mueller is a project scientist II at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). She is responsible for project management for the NCAR, Federal Aviation Administration, and Army Convective Weather program and provides scientific input for the design of the application’s software. She received her M.S. in atmospheric science from the University of Chicago. Her current research focuses on the thunderstorm life cycle, with emphasis on short-term forecasting. She has also published on evaluation of meteorological airborne radar and the utility of sounding and mesonet data to nowcast thunderstorm initiation.
Michael J.Prather is a professor in the Earth System Science Department at the University of California, Irvine. His research interests include simulation of the physical, chemical and biological processes that determine atmospheric composition and the development of detailed numerical models of photochemistry and atmospheric radiation, and global chemical transport models that describe ozone and other trace gases. Dr. Prather played a significant role in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s second and third assessments and a special report on aviation and in the World Meteorological Organization’s ozone assessments (1985–1994). He is a
fellow of the American Geophysical Union and a foreign member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters and has served on several National Research Council committees, including the Panel on Climate Variability on Decade-to-Century Timescales, and is currently a member of the National Research Council’s Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate. He received his Ph.D. in astronomy from Yale University.
Marilyn Wolfson is assistant group leader of the Weather Sensing Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory. She has served as leader of the Federal Aviation Administration Aviation Weather Research Program’s Convective Weather Product Development Team, a large team of collaborating researchers from four major laboratories and other universities, since its inception in 1996. Her research interests focus on aviation weather, particularly convective weather research. She and her project team have also worked on the critical aviation need for automated tactical convective weather forecasts with the development and deployment of accurate 1- to 2-hour forecasts tailored to terminal and en route users. Dr. Wolfson has served on the National Research Council’s National Weather Service Modernization Committee and the Committee on Meteorological Analysis, Prediction and Research. Dr. Wolfson received her Ph.D. in meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.