Robert A. Fernandez Borda, Senior Research Engineer, received the 2024 UMBC Research Faculty Excellence Award. He was recognized for his work in "serving as the lead optical designer of the HARP polarimeter family (HARP2 is currently in space in NASA's PACE mission) and also leads the design of the FPGA firmware controlling the custom acquisition of the polarimeters." 

Margo Young, Director, Earth and Space Research Administration, received the 2024 University System of Maryland Board of Regents Staff Award for Effectiveness and Efficiency. In particular, "Her exceptional vision in developing ESRA, nurturing UMBC's important relationship with NASA, and her outstanding work as a leader in UMBC's vital program of research administration greatly contributed to naming UMBC as an R1 university."

More information about their accomplishments and other 2024 awardees can be found here. Congratulations to you both on these well-deserved recognitions!

(Photo credits: A. Houghton.)

One of the first visitors to the ESI table was very familiar with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, as her husband is Dr. Peter Griffith (618/SSAI).

The image illustrates an instance of size-seperated aerosol optical depth obtained from HARP2 observations in low Earth orbit. This specific granule was captured on April 14, 2024. Using the GRASP inversion algorithm, aerosol optical depth was retrieved and separated based on particle size. Notably, the image shows smoke transport from Central America to the western coast, with fine-mode dominant particles (Particulate Matter- PM1, diameter less than 1 um). These snapshots represent the aerosol products the scientific community can anticipate from HARP2. Dr. Puthukkudy is currently developing an operational implementation of this algorithm for near-real-time aerosol and surface properties retrieval over land and ocean surfaces. Interested users can contact Dr. Puthukkudy at aputhukkudy@umbc.edu for beta testing these aerosol products. Stay tuned for additional sample cases.

On February 8, 2024, the PACE satellite (Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem) was launched; now, the first light data from the HARP2 instrument has become available. The satellite, the data, and the utilization of this information is discussed in the UMBC News article "First data from UMBC’s HARP2 instrument on NASA PACE mission goes public."

From the article: "To me, first light means the conclusion of all the engineering work to develop HARP2 and the beginning of our science quest exploring and understanding the data from PACE," shares Vanderlei Martins, professor of physics at UMBC and lead of the HARP2 team.  "First light means  ‘It is working!’ and the question right after first light is, 'What does it mean?'"

Additionally, you can read the NASA press release on the first light data here.

Image: ESI engineers Danny Nelson and Dominik Cieslak take images with OreSat in front of the "Grande" integrating sphere at NASA GSFC. (Photo credit: Ian Decker/ESI.)

(Photo Credit: NASA GSFC, Maniac Talk 2017)