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Environmental Data Management at NOAA: Archiving, Stewardship, and Access (2007)

Chapter: Appendix B: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2007. Environmental Data Management at NOAA: Archiving, Stewardship, and Access. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12017.
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Page 102
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2007. Environmental Data Management at NOAA: Archiving, Stewardship, and Access. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12017.
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Page 103
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2007. Environmental Data Management at NOAA: Archiving, Stewardship, and Access. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12017.
×
Page 104
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2007. Environmental Data Management at NOAA: Archiving, Stewardship, and Access. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12017.
×
Page 105
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2007. Environmental Data Management at NOAA: Archiving, Stewardship, and Access. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12017.
×
Page 106
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2007. Environmental Data Management at NOAA: Archiving, Stewardship, and Access. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12017.
×
Page 107
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members." National Research Council. 2007. Environmental Data Management at NOAA: Archiving, Stewardship, and Access. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/12017.
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Page 108

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Appendix B 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 sur- face of the Earth. Robinson is the author or coauthor of approximately 130 articles, more than half of which have been published in peer-reviewed journals or as book chapters. He also is the State Climatologist for New Jersey. Robinson has served on several National Research Council (NRC) committees and chaired the NRC’s Committee on Climate Data Records from Operational Satellites: Development of a NOAA Satellite Data Utili- zation Plan. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University. David C. Bader is the Director of the Program for Climate Model Diagno- sis and Intercomparison, a scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Chief Scientist for the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Climate Change Prediction Program (CCPP). He previously held the posi- tions of project manager, research scientist, and senior research scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Bader has also been a visit- ing scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, has had an intergovernmental program act assignment as program manager for CCPP, and has directed the DOE’s Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing program and DOE’s Computer Hardware, Advanced Math- 102

APPENDIX B 103 ematics and Model Physics program. Bader received his Ph.D. in Atmo- spheric Science in 1985 from Colorado State University. Donald W. Burgess is a research fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies at the University of Oklahoma. He has served as the Chief of the Warning Research and Development Division of the National Severe Storms Laboratory. He has also served as Act- ing Director and Chief of Operations at the National Weather Service (NWS) Radar Operations Center, and Chief of the NWS Radar Training Branch. Burgess’s 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 cowinner of the Department of Commerce Silver Medal, and in 2003, he was a cowinner 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 Coop- erative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA). He is in charge of CIRA’s infrastructure and Earth Station and data holdings, and he oversees collaborative research with CIRA collaborators working within NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL). In addition to this ESRL-oriented work, Eis has helped direct the research requirements for Colorado State University’s Center for Geosciences Atmospheric Research Phase II-IV. Eis is also the Director of the CloudSat Data Processing Center (DPC). The DPC is responsible for the ingestion 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, Lieutenant Colonel Eis was commander of the Environmental Techni- cal Applications Center (USAFETAC), now called the Air Force Combat Climatology Center (AFCCC). At USAFETAC/CC he was responsible for all Air Force climate support and data holdings. He later served as 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 Air Force Bases. Sara J. Graves is the Director of the Information Technology and Systems Center and University, Board of Trustees University Professor, and profes- sor of Computer Science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. She

104 APPENDIX B is also the Director of the Information Technology Research Center at the National Space Science and Technology Center. Graves currently serves on the U.S. National Committee for the Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) of the International Council for Science and was elected to the CODATA Executive Committee. She is a member of NOAA’s Data Archiving and Access Requirements Working Group and a member of the Advisory Committee for Cyberinfrastructure to the Direc- tor of the National Science Foundation. Graves is on the editorial board of the Statistical Analysis and Data Mining Journal and on the Emerging Technologies Panel for the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Missile and Space Intelligence Command. She has served as a member of the NASA headquarters Earth System Science and Applications Advisory Commit- tee (ESSAAC) and Chair of the ESSAAC Subcommittee on Information Systems and Services. Graves directs research and development in large- scale distributed information systems, data mining and knowledge dis- covery, sensor networking, semantics and ontologies, high-performance computing, and geoinformatics. She received her Ph.D. in Computer Sci- ence from the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Ernest G. Hildner was the Director of NOAA’s Space Environment C ­ enter (SEC)—the nation’s official source of information about space weather storms—from 1986 to 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, National Center for Atmo- spheric Research (NCAR), and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center as Chief of its Solar Physics Branch. He was an experimental scientist for both the Skylab and the Solar Maximum Missions during the 1970s. Hildner has published dozens of papers in coronal and interplanetary physics and is a coholder of a patent for a variable-magnification X-ray telescope. In addition to his administrative responsibilities with NOAA, among them serving as NOAA’s Program Manager for Space Weather, Hildner cochaired the Committee on Space Weather for the National Space Weather Program, was a member of the advisory committees for the National Solar Observatory and NCAR High Altitude Observatory, and served on review panels for NASA and Defense Department 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. He has twice received the Presidential Rank Award for Senior Executive Service Managers.

APPENDIX B 105 Kenneth E. Kunkel is the Director of the Center for Atmospheric Science at the Illinois State Water Survey, where he has held a variety of positions since 1988, including Director of the Midwestern Regional Climate Center and Director of the Office of Applied Climatology. From 1982 to 1988, he served as the New Mexico State Climatologist and had a research and teaching appointment as an associate professor at New Mexico State Uni- versity. 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 designed to expand, improve, and analyze surface climate data sets, with a specific emphasis on the early cooperative observer network data. He has pub- lished numerous articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals and has writ- ten three book chapters. Kunkel received his Ph.D. in 1978 in meteorology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Mark A. Parsons is a Senior Associate Scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Envi­ ron­mental Sciences of the University of Colorado. He is also the pro- gram manager for the International Polar Year Data Management and the ­Frozen Ground Data Center at the World Data Center for Glaciology. Parsons 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 the University of Edinburgh and Cornell University, respectively. He earned his B.Sc. in Natural Resources and Communications from Cornell University in 1988. Mohan K. Ramamurthy is the Director of The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research’s (UCAR) Unidata Program and is a scientist in the National Center for Atmospheric Research’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 develops software for data access, processing, management, analysis, and visualization and provides support to a diverse community of 160-plus institutions vested in the common goal of sharing data. As a scientist, Ramamurthy studies weather processes and prediction, includ- ing 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

106 APPENDIX B Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma, where his doctoral research dealt with the four-dimensional assimilation of data and modeling of distur- bances 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. Smith also has interests in education and outreach and has written for popular magazines. She has designed a Web site permitting schoolchildren and the public to participate in a virtual research expedi- tion and one highlighting the day-to-day lives of research scientists. Smith has recently served on two advisory committees: the RIDGE 2000 Execu- tive 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 Insti- tute 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 focuses 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 NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imag- ing Spectroradiometer science team, and he is a principal investigator 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 previ- ous 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 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 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 meteoro-

APPENDIX B 107 logical satellite processing and application support activities for NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service and man- agement of several research support efforts at laboratories of NOAA’s Office of Atmospheric and Oceanic Research. 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, and in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, with oversight of all Department of Defense 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 sci- ences from the University of Washington. Steven J. Worley is the manager of the Data Support Section of the Com- putational and Information Systems Laboratory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), where he has also worked as a program- mer 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. The activities he is involved with include lead for the U.S. data manage- ment data center for The Observing [system] Research and Predictability Experiment (THORPEX) of the World Weather Research Program, the THORPEX Interactive Grand Global Ensemble (TIGGE), the Users Work- ing Group advisory panel for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at NASA, and chair on data archiving for the Integrated Ocean Observing Sys- tem Data Management and Communications Steering Team and Expert Team. ­Worley is a member of the American Geophysical Union and the A ­ merican Meteorological Society. He received his M.S. in Oceanography from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks in 1977. Xubin Zeng is a professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Zeng’s research in the past 20 years, documented in more than 80 peer-reviewed publications, has covered atmospheric turbulence (theory, parameteriza- tion, its interaction with clouds and radiation, and large-eddy simula- tions), mesoscale modeling of atmospheric flow over complex terrain, chaos theory and its applications to the atmosphere, global land-atmo- sphere interactions, ocean-atmosphere interactions, sea ice–atmosphere interactions, monsoon dynamics, remote sensing, and most recently, non- linear dynamics of vegetation. In the past 10 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. Zeng has acted as a bridge linking the remote sensing and field experiment community to the weather and climate modeling commu- nity. Numerous groups worldwide (among them the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the National Centers for Environmental Predic-

108 APPENDIX B tion, and the European Center for Medium-range Weather Forecasts) have used his models, algorithms, value-added datasets, and other research products. 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.

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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) collects, manages, and disseminates a wide range of climate, weather, ecosystem and other environmental data that are used by scientists, engineers, resource managers, policy makers, and others in the United States and around the world. The increasing volume and diversity of NOAA's data holdings - which include everything from satellite images of clouds to the stomach contents of fish - and a large number of users present NOAA with substantial data management challenges. NOAA asked the National Research Council to help identify the observations, model output, and other environmental information that must be preserved in perpetuity and made readily accessible, as opposed to data with more limited storage lifetime and accessibility requirements. This report offers nine general principles for effective environmental data management, along with a number of more specific guidelines and examples that explain and illustrate how these principles could be applied at NOAA.

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