D
Committee Biographies
Eugene M. Rasmusson (Chair) was formerly with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and is currently a research professor emeritus at the University of Maryland’s Department of Meteorology. His general area of interest is the atmospheric general circulation and the global hydrologic cycle. Within this broad subject area he has focused on the nature and predictability of climate and hydrologic variability on time scales ranging from a few weeks to a few years. Much of his work has centered on the relationship between sea-air interaction in the tropics and global precipitation variability, with particular emphasis on the El Niño phenomenon of the tropical Pacific. He is interested in the nature and predictability of the various components of the hydrologic cycle over continental regions, particularly North America and as it relates to the understanding and prediction of seasonal precipitation anomalies (droughts, wet periods). The primary motivation for these interests is the development of methods for skillful seasonal prediction of climate variations and their effect on water resources. Dr. Rasmusson is a National Academy of Engineering (NAE) member. He has served on many National Research Council (NRC) boards and committees, including the recent Panel on Climate Change Feedbacks.
Nancy L. Baker is a meteorologist and head of the Data Assimilation Section, Marine Meteorology Division of the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). She has worked for the Navy since 1985, and has extensive experience with data assimilation, observation quality control, global and mesoscale reanalysis and data impact studies, and observation adjoint sensitivity. Her implementation of satellite radiance observations for the Navy’s global forecast model (NOGAPS) us-
ing NRL’s 3D-VAR analysis (NAVDAS) produced significantly improved forecast skill. Dr. Baker is well respected in the data assimilation community, and serves as the technical liaison to the Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation (JCSDA) for the Navy. Dr. Baker leads several projects as the principal investigator, and collaborates with JCSDA partners and its international counterparts. She has published numerous journal articles and technical papers. In 2000, she received her Ph.D. in meteorology from the Naval Postgraduate School.
V. Chandrasekar is currently a professor at Colorado State University (CSU). Dr. Chandrasekar has been involved with research and development of weather radar systems for about 25 years. He has played a key role in developing the CSU-CHILL National Radar facility as one of the most advanced meteorological radar systems available for research, and continues to work actively with the CSU-CHILL radar supporting its research and education mission and is a coprincipal investigator of the facility. He also serves as the deputy director of the newly established National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Center, Center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere. Dr. Chandrasekar’s current research funding includes National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) support for precipitation research. He is an avid experimentalist conducting special experiments to collect in situ observations to verify the new techniques and technologies. Dr. Chandrasekar is coauthor of two textbooks, Polarimetric and Doppler Weather Radar (Cambridge University Press) and Probability and Random Processes (McGraw Hill). He has authored more than 100 journal articles and 150 conference publications and has served as academic adviser for over 40 graduate students. He served as a member of the NRC committee on Weather Radar Technology beyond NEXRAD (Next Generation Weather Radar), is the general chair for the 2006 International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, and has served on numerous review panels for various government agencies. He has received many awards, including the NASA technical achievement award, Abell Foundation Outstanding Researcher Award, University Deans Council Award, Outstanding Advisor Award, and the Distinguished Diversity Services Award. He was elected a fellow of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers (Geo-Science and Remote Sensing) in recognition of his contributions to quantitative remote sensing. He is also a fellow of the American Meteorological Society.
Carol Anne Clayson is an associate professor in the Department of Meteorology at Florida State University and is the director designate for the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Institute. From 1995 to 2001 she was an assistant and associate professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Purdue University. Dr. Clayson’s research interests are in air-sea interaction, ocean and atmosphere boundary layers, numerical ocean and coupled ocean-atmosphere modeling, and remote sensing of air-sea surface fluxes. She was the recipient in
2000 of a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and an Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Award. She was also the recipient in 1996 of an NSF career award. Her professional service includes program chair for the 12th American Meteorological Society (AMS) Conference on Air-Sea Interactions in 2003 and membership on a number of committees and working groups, including the AMS Committee on Interaction of the Sea and Atmosphere; AMS Board of Meteorological and Oceanographic Education in Universities; NASA Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Science Team (until 2003); Tropical Oceans and Global Atmosphere Programme (TOGA) Coupled Ocean-Atmosphere Response Experiment (COARE) Air-Sea Flux Working Group; and the TOGA COARE Radiation Working Group. Dr. Clayson is a member of the AMS, American Geophysical Union (AGU), and Oceanography Society and of the NRC Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate.
Jeffrey D. Hawkins is the head of the Satellite Meteorological Applications Section at the Naval Research Laboratory’s Marine Meteorology Division in Monterey, California. He earned his B.S. and M.S. degrees in meteorology at Florida State University. His research interests include mapping tropical cyclone structure and understanding multiple eyewall cycles using passive microwave remote sensing, incorporating aviation-related remote-sensing parameters to detect hazardous flying conditions, and transferring research efforts to operations. Mr. Hawkins received the AMS Special Act Award in January 2005, largely due to his tropical cyclone research efforts. Mr. Hawkins is a fellow of the AMS and has served as the chairman of the AMS Committee on Satellite Meteorology and Oceanography (2003), program chair for the January 2003 meeting, and short-course chair for Satellite Precipitation. Mr. Hawkins is an NRC postgraduate adviser and has served on the NRC Committee on Cooperation with the U.S.S.R. on Ocean Remote Sensing. He has 25 years of experience in satellite meteorology and oceanography (sea surface temperature, sea ice, and altimetry).
Kristina B. Katsaros is a former director of the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in Miami, Florida. She is currently an adjunct professor at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, Applied Marine Physics Division, as well as an affiliate professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington. Dr. Katsaros earned a Ph.D. from the University of Washington. She is a member of the NAE. Her research interests include processes of momentum, energy, and water transport between sea and air. Dr. Katsaros has used satellite data to estimate air-sea fluxes, including precipitation, and has attempted to understand the interaction of electromagnetic radiation (visible, infrared, and microwave) with waves on the sea surface. Using microwave radiometers and radars for analysis of midlatitude and tropical cyclones over the sea has dominated her research in the last decade.
M. Patrick McCormick is a professor of physics and a codirector of the Center for Atmospheric Sciences at Hampton University. For the past 38 years, Dr. McCormick has performed research on the development of sensors for measurements in Earth’s atmosphere. This research has focused primarily on lidar and satellite limb extinction (occultation) techniques for characterization of aerosols, clouds, and other atmospheric species. For his undergraduate degree he majored in physics at Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, Pennsylvania. He received both his master’s and his doctoral degrees in physics from the College of William and Mary. In his role as manager of the Center for Atmospheric Sciences, he has principal investigator duties for the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment II and III, and co-principal investigator duties for satellite experiment CALIPSO (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations), and conducts atmospheric research using satellite and supporting data. He has served on several NRC committees.
Matthias Steiner is a senior research scientist affiliated with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Princeton University. He received his Ph.D. in environmental sciences (with emphasis on atmospheric science) from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. Dr. Steiner’s research interests reach across hydrometeorology, cloud and precipitation physics, mountain meteorology, and radar and satellite meteorology. He is intrigued by the variability of precipitation in space and time and how to measure precipitation with in situ as well as remote-sensing instruments. His recent work is focused on understanding the effect of atmospheric moisture on the flow of air in and over complex terrain, and the associated cloud and precipitation processes. In addition, he has been investigating the uncertainty of satellite-based rainfall estimates and implications for hydrologic applications. Dr. Steiner served two terms on the AMS Committee on Radar Meteorology and just completed a 5-year term chairing the Technical Committee on Precipitation of the AGU Hydrology Section. He is a member of NASA’s Precipitation Missions Science Team and of the National Science Foundation’s Observing Facilities Advisory Panel. He served on the NRC Committee to Assess NEXRAD Flash Flood Forecasting Capabilities at Sulphur Mountain, California. Dr. Steiner was the recipient of the 2002 Editor’s Award for the AMS Journal of Hydrometeorology.
Graeme L. Stephens is a professor in the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University. He received his Ph.D. in 1977 from the University of Melbourne. Dr. Stephens’s research activities focus on atmospheric radiation and on the application of remote sensing in climate research, with particular emphasis on understanding the role of hydrological processes in climate change. His work has focused on understanding cloud radiation interactions as relevant to Earth’s climate using both theory and numerical modeling as well as analysis
of cloud properties from measurements made by satellites and aircraft. Dr. Stephens is currently the principal investigator of NASA’s CloudSat Mission. His professional activities include being the editor of a number of leading atmospheric science journals and past chairman of the World Climate Research Program GEWEX (Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment) Radiation Panel and the AMS Atmospheric Radiation Panel. He is a fellow of both the AGU and the AMS. Dr. Stephens is a former member of the NRC Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, the Climate Research Committee, and the Committee on Earth Sciences.
Christopher S. Velden is currently a research scientist at the University of Wisconsin. He heads a small group that develops satellite products mainly for tropical cyclone applications. Many of these products are derived from multispectral microwave sensors, including TRMM (as of now, TRMM is used indirectly). He served as a member of the U.S. Weather Research Project Science Steering Committee (1996-1999), the GOES (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites) Science Team (1996-1998), and the Geostationary Microwave Sounder Working Group (1995-1996). He is currently chair of the AMS Committee on Satellite Meteorology and has also been a member of the AMS Tropical Committee. In the last 5 years he has been honored by AMS with two awards and has published numerous papers. He served on the NRC Committee on NOAA NESDIS (National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service) Transition from Research to Operations.
Ray A. Williamson is a research professor of space policy and international relations at the Space Policy Institute, George Washington University. Before joining the institute in 1995, Dr. Williamson served as a senior associate at the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) of the U.S. Congress, where from 1979 to 1995 he directed most of OTA’s space-related studies. At the institute his research focuses on policy analysis in several areas, including Earth observations, space transportation, and national security space. Dr. Williamson is a member of the International Editorial Board of Space Policy. He has served on the NRC Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board.
NRC Staff
Paul Cutler is a senior program officer for the Board on Earth Sciences and Resources of the National Academies. Before joining the Academies staff, he was an assistant scientist and lecturer in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His research is in glaciology, hydrology, meteorology, and Quaternary science, and he has conducted fieldwork in Alaska, Antarctica, arctic Sweden, the Swiss Alps, Pakistan’s Karakoram mountains, the midwestern United States, and the Canadian Rockies. Dr. Cutler
received an M.Sc. in geography from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. in geology from the University of Minnesota.
Rob Greenway has been a project assistant at the National Academies since 1998. He received his A.B. in English and his M.Ed. in English education from the University of Georgia.
Leah Probst is a research associate with the National Academies’ Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate and the Polar Research Board. She received a B.A. in biology from George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
