After a national search, UMBC has selected a new director of the Goddard Earth Sciences Technology and Research (GESTAR) Center II. In fall 2021, NASA awarded $72 million to establish the new GESTAR II center for an initial three years. UMBC leads the center, which includes over 120 researchers, in collaboration with primary partner Morgan State University and six other institutions.

Charles Ichoku, professor of Earth and environmental sciences at Howard University and the Distinguished Scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Cooperative Science Center, will take the helm as director on February 1, 2023. He succeeds inaugural director Belay Demoz, professor of physics, who will continue in his departmental role and who previously served as director of the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET). JCET preceded GESTAR II, and was last funded in 2015 for $46 million over five years. Ichoku will also have an appointment at UMBC as professor of geography and environmental systems.

"Dr. Ichoku brings impressive credentials, not only as a world-class scientist, but also as a long-term NASA-based scientist and program manager, to this important leadership position at UMBC. He is a perfect fit for both GESTAR II and UMBC," shares Karl V. Steiner, Vice President for Research & Creative Achievement at UMBC. Prior to Ichoku's current position at Howard University, he spent two decades at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, including two years as an associate program manager at NASA Headquarters. His final title at NASA Goddard was assistant chief of the Climate and Radiation Laboratory.

Ichoku has also consistently prioritized supporting students, with a focus on diversity and inclusion. He served as co-PI for the NASA-funded Student Airborne Science Activation (SaSa) project, involving three NASA centers and six minority-serving Institutions (MSIs), including UMBC. This past summer, 24 students, including four from UMBC, spent four weeks at UMBC as part of the SaSa program.

"I am delighted to join UMBC as the new director of GESTAR II," Ichoku states. "It is both a great pleasure and an honor for me, as I have always admired UMBC for being a shining example in all areas of university performance, including education, scholarship, research, innovation, technology, diversity, sports, environmental sustainability, and community outreach. I am proud of UMBC for attaining the status of Carnegie R1 Doctoral Institution."

Ichoku adds: "It is also a great blessing to have this wonderful opportunity to contribute to scientific discoveries and knowledge expansion for human advancement through NASA, and, in particular, Goddard Space Flight Center. I previously spent two decades at NASA Goddard and enjoyed every day of working there. I feel highly privileged to be involved in a program that connects two of the organizations that perform at the highest levels in their respective domains of activity, namely academia (UMBC) and space (NASA)." 

UMBC welcomes Dr. Ichoku!

(Photo credit: Dr. Belay Demoz)

Congratulations to Badrul Hasan, who recently graduated with an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering. Stephen Guimond, associate research professor of physics, was his advisor and Meilin Yu, associate professor of mechanical engineering, was co-advisor. On November 22, 2022, Mr. Hasan successfully defended his thesis titled "A Study of the Impact of Numerical Dissipation on Mesoscale Simulations of Hurricane Intensification with Observational Heating." This work analyzed the computational fluid dynamics of the hurricane rapid intensification process.  More details can be found in this publication, led by Mr. Hasan. He will continue to pursue his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at UMBC.

On the weekend of September 9-10, 2022, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences held its Induction Ceremony in Cambridge, MA for Fellows who were elected in 2021 and 2022. Anne Thompson (610/UMBC), who was selected in 2021, was inducted in the Section of Astronomy, Astrophysics, and Earth Sciences. She is among 300+ other new Fellows joining the Academy, and she joins two other current NASA GSFC Academy members, Claire Parkinson (610) and John Mather (660).

"Founded in 1780 by John Adams and other early Americans, the Academy includes International Honorary Members. The Academy states that Fellows 'help solve the world's most urgent problems, create meaning through art, and contribute to the common good from every field, discipline, and profession.'" 

Their research, which centers on "how to use the information from the light emitted by tundra plants as solar induced fluorescence (SIF) to describe the functioning of the tundra ecosystem," was conducted over the summer from June through August, and the project is part of the NASA Terrestrial Ecology program's Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE). Read more here from Earth Observatory's Notes from the Field. 

Click here to learn how to pronounce Utqiagvik!

Eos has published this year's AGU section award recipients and named lecturers. "Each year, AGU sections recognize outstanding work within their fields by granting awards and hosting numerous lectures. All section honorees are selected on the basis of meritorious work or service toward the advancement and promotion of discovery and solution science. All of the award recipients and named lecturers have dedicated themselves to advancing Earth and space sciences." 

As part of the Atmospheric Sciences Section, Lorraine A. Remer, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, is the recipient of the Yoram J. Kaufman Outstanding Research and Unselfish Cooperation Award. Congratulations!

Dr. Steve Guimond, his graduate student Badrul Hasan (UMBC, Department of Mechanical Engineering) and collaborators have published a fundamental paper on the computational physics of the hurricane rapid intensification process in the Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems (JAMES). This paper demonstrates that the models used by the atmospheric physics community (e.g., Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model and its variants, such as NU-WRF) contain significant numerical dissipation that limits their use for accurately predicting hurricane rapid intensification and other nonlinear dynamical systems. The kinetic energy associated with convective bursts, the primary mechanism for heat transfer, is diminished in WRF, which leads to a weaker system-scale intensification through the upscale transfer of kinetic energy. These results can have potentially important consequences for operational forecasts, especially the rapid intensification process. For example, the under-prediction or low bias of rapid intensification forecasts may be partly due to excessive numerical dissipation. 

Hasan, M.B., S.R. Guimond, M. Yu, S. Reddy and F.X. Giraldo (2022), The effects of numerical dissipation on hurricane rapid intensification with observational heating, Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021MS002897.