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Governance
Update
by Susan Friberg, UCAR governance liaison
University Relations Committee
On 15–16 April, the spring meeting of the University Relations Committee was kindly hosted by Steve Monismith and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University. The committee held very productive discussions on planning for the UCAR Forum sessions at the upcoming October members’ meeting and on increasing the intellectual interactions between UCAR and the universities.
Under the adept guidance of John Merrill (University of Rhode Island), the URC subcommittee in charge of reviewing NCAR and UOP non-core/non-NSF proposals reported on its thorough review of the last six months’ worth of NCAR and UOP proposals. The subcommittee found that the proposals adhered to the criteria developed to encourage university collaboration and to ensure that the proposed research doesn’t compete unfairly with the universities.
In between these discussions, committee members enjoyed presentations on some very interesting research being done by three Stanford graduate students, and they toured Stanford’s new green-built Jasper Ridge field station for environmental and global change research. The field station is a fascinating mix of high- and low-tech solar technologies using new and recycled materials.
The URC chair is Eric Betterton, University of Arizona (better@atmo.arizona.edu).
Members Nominating Committee
In its 20 May meeting, the Nominating Committee (chaired by Mary Jo Richardson, Texas A&M University) selected the following slate of candidates for the trustee elections in October. UCAR management and the committee are very grateful that these candidates have agreed to commit time to the governance of UCAR.
Trustee-At-Large (these candidates will run unopposed):
Barbara Feiner, Washington University in St. Louis
Franklin Nutter, Reinsurance Association of AmericaInstitutional Trustees (four positions will be filled from this list):
Rosina Bierbaum, University of Michigan
Sara Graves, University of Alabama in Huntsville
Eugenia Kalnay, University of Maryland
Steven Rutledge, Colorado State University
Soroosh Sorooshian, University of Arizona
Kathleen Tierney, University of ColoradoThe slates of nominees for member committees will be available later this summer. Thanks to all who sent in nominations.
Board of Trustees
The UCAR Board of Trustees met on 21–22 May at NSF headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, the customary locale for its spring meeting. Trustees heard from key staff in a number of agencies and on Capitol Hill. The board approved promotions to senior scientist for NCAR’s Maura Hagan (High Altitude Observatory) and James Hurrell (Climate and Global Dynamics Division). Also, a number of trustees took the opportunity to visit their representatives and senators in support of various pieces of the federal science budget—in particular, funding for NSF and NOAA.
October Meetings
The annual meetings of UCAR members and affiliates will be held the week of 6–10 October. Travel and hotel information will go out in August.
Please contact Susan Friberg with any questions (friberg@ucar.edu).
Chairing the board: Leo Donner
In February Leo Donner began a one-year term as chair of the UCAR Board of Trustees.
Donner is a professor in the Department of Geological and Geophysical Sciences at Princeton University and the Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, jointly run by Princeton and NOAA. He is also a research scientist in NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) and an affiliate scientist in NCAR’s Climate and Global Dynamics Division. Donner’s main scientific interest is in climate, with an emphasis on clouds and their role in Earth‘s radiation balance.
Donner’s association with UCAR runs long and deep. He was an NCAR postdoctoral fellow in 1983-84 and a scientist at NCAR from 1984 to 1987. Serving on the board since 1997, he is in his second term as a trustee; he served as chairman of the board’s Personnel Committee for five years. Leo is co-chair of NCAR‘s Atmospheric Model Working Group and the Scientific Computing Division Advisory Panel. He served for three years on the UCAR Membership Committee.
“I’ve enjoyed the frequent visits to Boulder associated with my administrative and scientific activities at UCAR and NCAR,” Donner says. “It‘s great to see valued friends—some of whom I met 25 years ago when I first visited NCAR prior to starting graduate school—as often as I do. Some of them still trust my music, theatre, and restaurant recommendations for Boulder and Denver!”
Also in this issue...
The next phase of remote sensing
Spinning up a new GLOBE structure
Is the 1990s decline in grad-school interest reversing?
Geomagnetic storms may spur thermospheric vortices
Mammoth meeting bridges the world of geoscience
