ASP Director's Message
The Advanced Study Program (ASP) helps NCAR and the scientific communities that it serves to prepare for the future by engaging in human, institutional and broad intellectual capacity building. ASP entrains a broad community of scholars, encourages the exchange of information and the development of new perspectives, and provides unique hands-on educational experiences and many opportunities for students, advisors, and early career scientists to collaborate with a wide variety of NCAR scientists and engineers engaged in research, modeling, and observational activities.
The two-year ASP Postdoctoral Fellowships encourage the development of early career scientists in the field of atmospheric and related sciences and direct attention to timely cutting-edge scientific areas. Approximately 10 new appointments are made annually for positions across NCAR. Fellows' research advances are reported separately in the NCAR Laboratory Annual Reports.
Through its remaining components, the Graduate Visitor Program (GVP) and Faculty Fellowship Program (FFP), ASP promotes research activities, fosters graduate education, and develops partnerships between NCAR scientists and their colleagues in universities and other institutions.
Accomplishments
The ASP awarded 11 new postdoctoral fellowships in spring 2011. These new fellows have already begun to arrive and to participate in ASP activities, providing a boost to the ongoing program. Between the FFP and the GVP, the ASP supported 140 months of long-term visits to NCAR in FY10. Four faculty members came to NCAR as part of the 2011 Faculty Fellowship Program while 25 GVP awards were given as a result of the 2010 GVP search. Most of the GVP awards also include an advisor visit.
The ASP continued its ongoing efforts to better serve diverse communities in FY2011 through the continuation of the collaboration with North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University.
More on all of these programs can be found in this report.
FY2012 Plans
ASP will continue to engage and develop the scientific workforce of the future through its core visitor and fellowship program elements that engage all graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in residence at NCAR, including monthly seminars, monthly informational socials, the annual ASP retreat and ongoing mentoring opportunities. Through the highly successful Thompson Lecture Series, ASP will bring two prominent scientists to NCAR for extended interactions with this cohort. Shadia Habbal, a professor at the University of Hawaii, will be visiting November.
The annual ASP Colloquium series will focus on the topic of Subseasonal Variability and its Impact at the Weather-Climate Intersection. As in 2011, the colloquium will expand to three weeks from two to accommodate a revival of an NCAR tradition: the ASP Research Colloquium. The new format will include a one-week colloquium geared toward researchers engaged in the colloquium topic. Students will stay for three weeks to participate in lectures and hands-on activities.
ASP will support the NCAR Software Engineering Assembly’s first ever conference and also provide organizational support for the Technology Innovation Forum and the activities of the Early Career Scientists Assembly (ECSA).
ASP will continue to promote diversity in the atmospheric sciences by supporting travel of NCAR scientists to give seminars at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), supporting teaching opportunities of NCAR postdocs at HBCUs and encouraging participation in ASP programs of individuals from underrepresented groups. ASP’s Jia Yue will teach for a semester at Hampton University, an HBCU in Virginia.
Additional details along with other ASP plans are included in this report.
ASP Postdoctoral Fellows, Graduate Visitor Program visitors, and Faculty Fellowship Program visitors, June 2011.