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Preliminary Principles and Guidelines for Archiving Environmental and Geospatial Data at NOAA: Interim Report (2006)

Chapter: Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2006. Preliminary Principles and Guidelines for Archiving Environmental and Geospatial Data at NOAA: Interim Report. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11659.
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Appendix A:
Biographical Sketches of Committee Members

David A. Robinson (Chair) is the Chairman of the Geography Department at Rutgers University. He has expertise in the collection and archiving of accurate climatic data, and is interested in climate change (particularly state and regional climate issues), hemispheric and regional snow cover dynamics, interactions of snow cover with other climate elements, and the dynamics of solar and terrestrial radiative fluxes at and close to the surface of the earth. Robinson is the author or co-author of approximately 130 articles, over half in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters. He also is the State Climatologist for New Jersey. Robinson has served on several NRC committees, and served as the chairman of the Committee on Climate Data Records from Operational Satellites: Development of a NOAA Satellite Data Utilization Plan. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University.


David C. Bader is the Director for the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI), a scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Chief Scientist for the DOE Climate Change Prediction Program (CCPP). Before holding his current positions, he held the positions of project manager, research scientist and senior research scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). Bader has also been a visiting scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and has had an intergovernmental program act (IPA) assignment as program manager for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science's Climate Change Prediction Program. He has held the position of director of the DOE Office of Science Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) program and the DOE’s Computer Hardware, Advanced Mathematics and Model Physics (CHAMMP) Program. Bader received his Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science in 1985 from Colorado State University.


Donald W. Burgess is a research fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies (CIMMS) at the University of Oklahoma. He has served as the Chief of the Warning Research and Development Division of the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL). He has also served as Acting Director and Chief of Operations at the National Weather Service Radar Operations Center (ROC), and Chief of the National Weather Service Radar Training Branch. His research interests lie in the areas of severe weather and on techniques for improving warnings of weather hazards, particularly techniques using Doppler radar to detect and warn of tornadoes. In 1979, he was a co-winner of the Department of Commerce Silver Medal, and in 2003, he was a co-winner of the Department of Commerce Bronze Medal. He is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society. Burgess received his M.S. from the University of Oklahoma in 1974.


Kenneth E. Eis is Deputy Director of Colorado State University’s Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA). He is in charge of CIRA’s infrastructure and Earth Station, and data holdings and oversees collaborative research with CIRA collaborators working within

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2006. Preliminary Principles and Guidelines for Archiving Environmental and Geospatial Data at NOAA: Interim Report. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11659.
×

NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL). In addition to this ESRL-oriented work, Eis has helped directed the research requirements for the CSU Center for Geosciences Atmospheric Research (CG/AR) Phase II-IV. Eis is also the director of the CLOUDSAT Data Processing Center (DPC). The DPC is responsible for the ingest of all CloudSat data and the production of science products and their distribution to the science community. Prior to his current job and retirement from the U.S. Air Force, Lt. Col. Eis was commander of the Environmental Technical Applications Center (USAFETAC) now called the Air Force Combat Climatology Center (AFCCC). As USAFETAC/CC he was responsible for all Air Force climate support and data holdings. Next he was Director of Environmental Sciences at HQ Air Weather Service, and Chief Staff Meteorologist for the Air Force Systems Command. In these jobs he developed aerospace requirements in support of the Air Weather Service future systems as well as heading the analysis and mitigation efforts of Air Force advanced weapons systems environmental limitations. He also managed weather related launch support requirements at Vandenberg and Patrick AFBs.


Sara J. Graves is the director of the Information Technology and Systems Center and University Professor of Computer Science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. She is also the Director of the Information Technology Research Center at the National Space Science and Technology Center. Graves is on the National Academies U.S. National Committee on CODATA and the National Biological Information Infrastructure Science Committee. She has served as a member of the NASA Headquarters Earth System Science and Applications Advisory Committee (ESSAAC) and Chair of the ESSAAC Subcommittee on Information Systems and Services (ESISS). Graves directs research and development in large-scale distributed information systems, data mining and knowledge discovery, high performance computing and networking, grid technologies and services, geospatial data analysis and visualization and bioinformatics. She received her Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Alabama in Huntsville in 1984.


Ernest G. Hildner was the Director of NOAA’s Space Environment Center (SEC), the nation’s official source of information about space weather storms, from 1986 until 2005. Under his direction, SEC conducted research and consulted on space weather instrument development for NOAA, NASA, and the Air Force. Hildner is a solar physicist who has worked for the High Altitude Observatory, NCAR, and for NASA Marshall Space Flight Center as Chief of its Solar Physics Branch. He was an experiment scientist for both the Skylab and the Solar Maximum Missions during the 70’s. Hildner has published dozens of papers in coronal and interplanetary physics and co-holds a patent for a variable-magnification x-ray telescope. In addition to his administrative responsibilities with NOAA, including being NOAA’s Program Manager for Space Weather, Hildner was a Co-chair of the Committee on Space Weather for the National Space Weather Program, a member of the advisory committees for the NOAO National Solar Observatory and NCAR High Altitude Observatory, and served on review panels for NASA and DoD projects. In December 2003 he received the Department of Commerce Gold Medal for advancing the nation’s space weather services through the conception, funding, and development of the first-operational Solar X-ray Imager (SXI). He has twice received the Presidential Rank Award for Senior Executive Service managers.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2006. Preliminary Principles and Guidelines for Archiving Environmental and Geospatial Data at NOAA: Interim Report. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11659.
×

Kenneth E. Kunkel is the director for the Center for Atmospheric Science at the Illinois State Water Survey. He has held a variety of positions at the Illinois State Water Survey since 1988, including Director of the Midwestern Regional Climate Center and Director of the Office of Applied Climatology. During 1982-1988, he served as the New Mexico State Climatologist and had a research and teaching appointment as an Associate Professor at New Mexico State University. Kunkel also studied atmospheric optical phenomena as a research meteorologist with the Atmospheric Sciences Laboratory at White Sands Missile Range. His recent research has focused on climate variability, extremes, and change. He has managed several projects with goals to expand, quality control, and analyze surface climate data sets, a specific emphasis being on the early cooperative observer network data. He has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals and has written three book chapters. Kunkel received his Ph.D. in 1978 in meteorology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.


Mark A. Parsons is an Associate Scientist III at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences of the University of Colorado where he is the data set manager and the project manager for the Cold Land Processes Experiment Data Management. Parsons is also the program manager for the International Polar Year Data Management and the Frozen Ground Data Center at the World Data Center for Glaciology. He has over 15 years of data management experience, including appointments as an environmental scientist at AScI Corporation and Coe-Truman Technologies as well as research associate and research assistant at University of Edinburgh and Cornell University respectively. Parsons earned his B.Sc. in Natural Resources and Communications from Cornell University in 1988.


Mohan K. Ramamurthy is the Director of UCAR’s Unidata Program and is a scientist in NCAR’s Mesoscale and Microscale Meteorology Division. Unidata provides a broad array of data for use in geosciences education and research. In addition to providing data, Unidata also develop software for data access, processing, management, analysis, and visualization and provides support to a diverse community of over 160 institutions vested in the common goal of sharing data. As a scientist, Ramamurthy studies weather processes and prediction, including mesoscale phenomena such as gravity waves, precipitation band, hurricanes, and ensemble forecasting. His other research interests include information technology, interactive-multimedia instruction and learning, and end-to-end data services. Ramamurthy joined UCAR in 2003 after spending nearly 16 years on the faculty in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma, where his doctoral research dealt with the four-dimensional assimilation of data and modeling of disturbances associated with monsoons.


Deborah K. Smith is a senior scientist of geology and geophysics at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Her research focuses on large scale plate tectonics as well as the dynamics of submarine and subaerial rift zones. She routinely goes to sea and collects bathymetry, side-scan sonar, gravity, magnetic, and photo-imagery data. She has strong interests in data quality and preservation and has organized workshops about these topics. She also has interests in education and outreach and has written for popular magazines. She has designed a website permitting school children and the public to participate in a virtual research expedition and one highlighting the day-to-day lives of research scientists. Smith has recently served on two

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2006. Preliminary Principles and Guidelines for Archiving Environmental and Geospatial Data at NOAA: Interim Report. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11659.
×

advisory committees: The RIDGE 2000 Executive Committee and the U.S. Science Advisory Committee. She earned her Ph.D. in Earth Sciences from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California in San Diego.


John R. G. Townshend holds a joint appointment as Professor in the Institute for Advanced Computing Studies and the Department of Geography at the University of Maryland. He is also a member of the Department of Geography’s Laboratory for Global Remote Sensing Studies. Townshend's research centers on the use of remote sensing and advanced computing methods for improvements in the characterization of regional and global land cover. He has been a member of the NASA’s MODIS Science Team, and he is a PI on the Landsat Pathfinder Project for monitoring the Earth's Tropical Moist Forests. Townshend has also been chairman of the Joint Scientific and Technical Committee of the Global Climate Observing System. His previous NRC service includes membership on the Committee on Geophysical and Environmental Data and the Board on Earth Sciences and Resources. He served as a member of the NRC Committee for Review of the Science Implementation Plan of the NASA Office of Earth Science. Townshend earned his Ph.D. in Geography (Geomorphology) in 1971 from the University College in London.


Paul D. Try is a Senior Vice President and Program Manager at Science and Technology Corporation (STC) and Former Director of the WMO/WCRP International Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) Project Office. Try has expertise in meteorological in-situ and remote sensors (satellite and radar), as well as data collection, processing, exchange and archival activities. His recent STC management activities include meteorological satellite processing and application support activities for NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service (NESDIS), and management of three research support efforts at laboratories of NOAA’s Office of Atmospheric and Oceanic Research Environmental Technology Laboratory, Air Resources Laboratory, and Forecast Systems Laboratory. Prior to joining STC, he served in the U.S. Air Force Air Weather Service where his responsibilities included oversight of the Automated Weather Distribution System (AWDS), and in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, with oversight of all DoD research and development in environmental sciences. Try is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and was president of the AMS from 1996 to 1997. He received his Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences from the University of Washington.


Steven J. Worley is the manager of the Data Support Section, Scientific Computing Division, Computational and Information Systems Laboratory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) where he has also work as a programmer IV and a programmer III. Before his work at NCAR, Worley worked at Texas A&M University as a research assistant and a research associate. He is involved in activities such as the lead for the U.S. data management data center for WWRP THORPEX (The Observing system Research and Predictability Experiment) TIGGE (THORPEX Interactive Grand Global Ensemble), the Users Working Group advisory panel for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at NASA, the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) Data Management and Communications (DMAC) Steering Team and Expert Team Chair on data archiving. Worley is a member of the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society. He received his M.S. in Oceanography from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks in 1977.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2006. Preliminary Principles and Guidelines for Archiving Environmental and Geospatial Data at NOAA: Interim Report. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11659.
×

Xubin Zeng is a professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Zeng’s research in the past twenty years, through over 80 peer-reviewed publications, has covered atmospheric turbulence (theory, parameterization, its interaction with clouds and radiation, and large-eddy simulations), mesoscale modeling of atmospheric flow over complex terrain, chaos theory and its applications to the atmosphere, global land-atmosphere interactions, ocean-atmosphere interactions, sea ice-atmosphere interactions, monsoon dynamics, remote sensing, and most recently, nonlinear dynamics of vegetation. In the past ten years, he has focused on the land-atmosphere-ocean-sea-ice interface processes of the earth's climate system by integrating global modeling with remote sensing and in-situ data. He has acted as a bridge linking the remote sensing and field experiment community to the weather and climate modeling community. His research products (including models, algorithms, and value-added datasets) have been used worldwide by numerous groups (including NCAR, NCEP, ECMWF). He has extensive experience with most satellite land products and some experience with satellite atmosphere and ocean products. Zeng earned his Ph.D. in atmospheric sciences from Colorado State University in 1992.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2006. Preliminary Principles and Guidelines for Archiving Environmental and Geospatial Data at NOAA: Interim Report. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11659.
×
Page 18
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2006. Preliminary Principles and Guidelines for Archiving Environmental and Geospatial Data at NOAA: Interim Report. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11659.
×
Page 19
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2006. Preliminary Principles and Guidelines for Archiving Environmental and Geospatial Data at NOAA: Interim Report. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11659.
×
Page 20
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2006. Preliminary Principles and Guidelines for Archiving Environmental and Geospatial Data at NOAA: Interim Report. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11659.
×
Page 21
Suggested Citation:"Appendix A: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2006. Preliminary Principles and Guidelines for Archiving Environmental and Geospatial Data at NOAA: Interim Report. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11659.
×
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) collects and manages a wide range of environmental and geospatial data to fulfill its mission requirements--data that stretch from the surface of the sun to the core of the earth, and affect every aspect of society. With limited resources and enormous growth in data volumes, NOAA asked the National Academies for advice on how to archive and provide access to these data. This book offers preliminary principles and guidelines that NOAA and its partners can use to begin planning specific archiving strategies for the data streams they currently collect. For example, the book concludes that the decision to archive environmental or geospatial data should be driven by its current or future value to society, and that funding for environmental and geospatial measurements should include sufficient resources to archive and provide access to the data these efforts generate. The preliminary principles and guidelines proposed in this book will be refined and expanded to cover data access issues in a final book expected to be released in 2007.

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