Outstanding Accomplishment Awards

2001 Award winners and nominees

The 7 December UCAR/NCAR/UOP party continued the tradition of ringing in the holidays while recognizing the outstanding work of staff. A total of 15 nominations were received for this year's Outstanding Accomplishment Awards (formerly the Outstanding Performance Awards). For photos and complete coverage of the ceremony, please see the Staff Notes article.

Nominations and winners:
1995 • 1996 • 1997 • 1998 • 1999 • 2000 • 2001 • 2002 • 2003 • 2004 • 2005 • 2006 • 2007

All Award Winners, 1967–present

2001 Winners

Distinguished Achievement Award
Tim Brown (HAO), for his pioneering work in detecting extrasolar planets, including the first direct detection of an atmosphere on a planet outside our solar system.

Outstanding Publication
Juanzhen "Jenny" Sun and N. Andrew Crook (both joint MMM/RAP), for their articles: "Dynamical and microphysical retrieval from Doppler radar observations using a cloud model and its adjoint. Part I: Model development and simulated data experiments," Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 54, 1642–1661; "Part II: Retrieval experiments of an observed Florida convective storm," Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences 55, 835–852, and "Real-time low- level wind and temperature analysis using single WSR-88D data," Weather and Forecasting 16, 117–132. The papers make an important contribution to atmospheric science by presenting a new method for improving 0–12 hour forecasts and, in so doing, advancing the scientific understanding of convection. They also break new ground in assimilating Doppler radar data into a cloud-scale model, providing the potential for significantly improving initial conditions in the model.

Education and Outreach
Morris Weisman (MMM), for outstanding contributions to the community in the area of convective weather. In recent years, Morris has dedicated considerable effort in synthesizing a fundamental understanding of the latest advancements in convective-storm and severe-weather research, developing innovative new teaching materials to convey this knowledge, and instructing both operational forecasters and university students on these topics. Through his involvement as a volunteer in the UCAR COMET program, Morris was the key science contributor to the development of four distance learning modules and has been a frequent instructor in COMET courses.

Scientific and Technical Accomplishment
Scott Swerdlin, Tom Warner, Cindy Mueller, Laurie Carson, Yubao Liu, Doug Lindholm, Rebecca Ruttenberg, Tom Saxen, Hank Fisher, Daran Rife, Troy Sandblom, Julien Chastang, David Hahn, Hsiao-Ming Hsu, Rong-Shyang Sheu, Steve Webb, David Leberknight, Fei Chen, Niles Oien, Jaimi Yee, Terri Betancourt, and Carter Borst (RAP), Chris Davis (MMM/RAP), and Simon Low-Nam, Al Bourgeois, and Kevin Manning (MMM), for their work in designing, developing, and implementing a Four-Dimensional Weather (4DWX) system for the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command, which is the command's primary source of weather data, forecasts, and analyses. Significant advances in both science and engineering have been made in the course of developing the system at five army ranges. They include advances in real-time, four-dimensional data assimilation techniques, providing improved short-term forecasting capabilities; and the creation of Java-based software to manage data ingest, quality control, requests for information, system monitoring, and weather alerts.

Administrative Achievement
Dan Wilson (F&A), for his contributions to the financial well-being of UCAR. His innovative analyses of available financial tools have helped save UCAR money and actually added to the net worth of the corporation, which in turn has helped UCAR get lower interest rates on its debt. The benefit to the corporation is estimated to be in excess of $4 million.

Other nominees

Outstanding publication

Given for published results of original research, review papers, pedagogically oriented books, or other contributions to atmospheric science, broadly defined; or works that connect atmospheric science with other disciplines or with matters of public policy.

Yuhong Fan (HAO), "Nonlinear growth of the three-dimensional undular instability of a horizontal magnetic layer and the formation of arching flux tubes," The Astrophysical Journal 546, 509-527.

William D. Collins, Phillip J. Rasch, and Brian E. Eaton (CGD), Boris V. Khattatov and Jean-Francois Lamarque (ACD), and Charles S. Zender (University of California at Irvine), "Simulating aerosols using a chemical transport model with assimilation of satellite aerosol retrievals: Methodology for INDOEX," Journal of Geophysical Research 106, 7313-7336.

Jothiram Vivekanandan (RAP), Scott Ellis and Richard Oye (ATD), D.S. Zrnic and A.V. Ryzhkov (National Severe Storms Laboratory), and J. Straka (University of Oklahoma), "Cloud microphysics retrieval using S-band dual polarization radar measurements," Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 80, 381-388.

Education and Outreach

Given for efforts having a significant impact on, and leading to improvements in, scientific, mathematical, or technical education, or other efforts that significantly enhance the public's understanding of scientific or technical issues. These activities may involve postgraduate, graduate, undergraduate, K–12, or general-public education.

Paul Charbonneau (HAO), for development of several color slide sets and support materials on the sun and of an HAO public education Web site useful to students from kindergarten through university levels as well as the general public.

Stephen Cohn and William Brown (ATD), for advancing undergraduate and graduate education in instrumentation and observational analysis, increasing student participation in all phases of NCAR field studies.

Marcia Politovich and Ben Bernstein (RAP), for their years of work with forecasters, pilots, and dispatchers in the area of inflight icing, which has included listening to the needs of the user community, demonstrating new products and capabilities, and educating users about relevant meteorological principles.

Scientific and Technical Accomplishment

Given for efforts leading to substantial improvements in scientific and/or technical capabilities, including advances in hardware or software engineering, computer science, and applied science. Accomplishments in this category might, but do not necessarily, result in a scientific or technical publication.

Steve Chiswell, Robb Kambic, Linda Miller, Russ Rew, Jeff Weber, Anne Wilson, and Tom Yoksas (Unidata), for their accomplishments in making data from near-real-time Doppler weather radar freely available to researchers and educators, which has allowed more than 60 university sites since January to make use of this formerly expensive data.

Hal Cole, Junhong Wang, Erik Miller, and Katy Beierle (ATD), and Ari Paukkunen (Vaisala), for identifying the cause and extent of dry bias in Vaisala sonde products and for developing physically based correction algorithms that can substantially improve radiosonde data from field experiments and historical datasets. (More than 50% of radiosonde stations worldwide use sondes and other equipment manufactured by Vaisala.)

John Gille, Charles Cavanaugh, Merritt Deeter, David Edwards, Gene Francis, Juying Warner, and Daniel Ziskin (ACD), for their expert work over many years to retrieve and provide to the scientific community the first global sets of tropospheric carbon monoxide profiles and column amounts using the Measurements of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT) instrument.

Administrative achievement

Given for efforts that substantially improve UCAR's ability to manage its affairs. Activities in this category might include efficiencies in managing information, improved processes within or interactions among UCAR entities or with funding agencies, or enhanced services or support to UCAR employees.

Gene Arnn (HAO), for extraordinary efforts in support of short- and long-term planning, as well as for integrating a new science team into HAO while maintaining his regular division duties.

Susan Jeffries (GST), for her development and implementation of the UNAVCO Project and Operational Database System (which provides such functions as operational support information about UNAVCO projects).