Fiscal Year 2018 NCAR Metrics

The metrics featured below offer qualitative and quantitative measurements and assessments of the productivity, quality, and impacts that NCAR staff, programs and activities have on our research community, sponsors, and society in general for data reported in the Metrics Database, iVantage HRIS system and OpenSky Database as of October 31, 2018 for fiscal year 2018 (October 1, 2017 - September 30, 2018).  Staff continue to update their entries and expand their contributions throughout the year so visit the Metrics Database for the most current data. (2018 METRICS AS OF OCTOBER 31, 2018). Date stamp 10/30/18.

LAB/OBSERVATORY/PROGRAM-LEVEL METRICS

NCAR-Hosted Community Events

In FY18, a total of 119 events were hosted: 43 workshops, 17 tutorials, five symposia, six conferences, and 48 colloquia with an average audience of 53 colleagues per event and estimated total audience of 6,315. Event co-sponsors groups included .

Facility Tours

NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputer

Each year, NCAR facilities host tours organized for a specific organization or group. This year, NCAR hosted a total of 96 tours, between the four locations.

The NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputer Center (NWSC) is based in Cheyenne, Wyoming.  The Center provides advanced computing services to scientists studying a broad range of disciplines, including weather, climate, oceanography, air pollution, space weather, computational science, energy production, and carbon sequestration. The Center is open to the public for self-guided tours, field trips for school groups, and non-school group special tours. In FY18, the Center received 1840 walk-in public visitors, and averaged 153 visitors per month.

NWSC hosted 53 tours in FY18, for groups ranging in size from 1 to 88 people. Eight tours were for K-12 groups, including Gilchrist Elementary School (Colorado) and various local school visits. Ten groups took science- or technical-related tours, including a group from the IBS Center for Climate Physics, South Korea. There were 16 college or university groups, ranging from Casper College (Colorado) to Mississippi State University. There were seven tours by political/sponsor groups, including the Department of Homeland Security and the National Science Foundation/House Appropriations Committee. Additionally, twelve peer centers visited, ranging from Greenhouse Data to HPE Samsung.

The Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport hosted a total of 36 tours in FY 2018. Ten tours were for college and university groups, including WE-CAN campaign team and a Colorado University Global Carbon Cycle Class. Nine tours were for political and sponsor groups, including Senator Cory Gardner’s office and Admiral Nancy Hann. There were also five tours provided to K-12 groups, including one from the Saint Vrain Valley School District (Colorado). This year there were twelve science/technical tours provided to groups ranging from the Meteo-France office to Harvard Medical School’s Department of Biological and Medical Systems.

The High Altitude Observatory

The High Altitude Observatory hosted a total of 7 tours in FY18. One tour was for the University of Hawai’i. There was one tour for the Ouray High School from the K-12 group. There were also four science and technical tours provided to NIST and LASP Scientists.

Individual Staff Metrics

Contributions to Individual Graduate Student Education

NCAR staff members serve as research advisors and thesis committee members for graduate students around the world.

In FY 2018, NCAR staff served as graduate advisors or committee members for 210 graduate students. Twenty-one of those are working on their M.S. degree and 189 are working on their Ph.D. Seventy-three percent of students attend U.S. universities, whereas 27% study at schools in 16 different countries world-wide  including a PhD student from the National Cheng Kung University who was advised by Nicholas Pedatella, a PhD student from the University of Sheffield advised by Louisa Emmons, and a Master’s student from the University of Alabama, Huntsville advised by Tammy Weckwerth.

Editorships

NCAR staff members serve as publication editors. These positions recognize the appointee's leadership in the field and serve a critical role in developing a given field's future focus.

92 NCAR staff served in editorial roles for 107 different publications or journals. Hugh Morrison served the Editor for the Monthly Weather Review while Danica Lombardozzi served as a Review Editor for the Frontiers in Forest and Global Change. Publications included top-tier journals such as the Monthly Weather Review and the Journal of Climate.

External Awards

Every year a significant number of NCAR Staff are honored for their scientific excellence and community contributions to the Atmospheric and related sciences. 

Gordon Bonan (CGD) was named American Meteorology Society Fellow. The AMS Fellow honor celebrates outstanding contributions to the atmospheric or related oceanic or hydrologic sciences or their applications during a substantial period of years.

Four scientists received awards from the American Geophysical Union (AGU) to include Linda Mearns, selected speaker for the 2017 Stephen H. Schneider Memorial Lecture, Mary Hudson received the John Adam Fleming Medal, Clara Deser received the Bjerknew Lecture and Kevin Trenberth was awarded the 2017 Roger Revelle Medal.

K-12 Outreach

Staff across NCAR work directly with classes and groups of K-12 students to develop or deliver lectures, conduct tours, and lead or participate in field trips and other educational activities.

Forty-five NCAR Staff worked with K-12 students from 58 schools or other school based organizations. Activities included judging at the Colorado Science and Engineering Fair, helping teachers, mentoring, and field trips reaching 19 different communities. Examples range from volunteering at the Louisville Elementary School in Louisville, Colorado to being a learning fair judge at Ryan Elementary School in Lafayette, Colorado.

Among the highlights: Bill Mahoney (RAL) supports the Snow Plow Painting Art Project involving more than 200 kids, on an annual basis (since 2003). This project brings awareness of the City of Louisville’s winter snow and ice control operations and the safety hazards associated with winter conditions by bringing together school students, city operations officials, and weather experts. Art classes at each of the participating schools design artwork consistent with the designated theme for the year and the artwork is then painted on the snow plows. Seven schools in Louisville participate in this project; Mark Miesch (HAO) was on the Board of Directors at the National Space Science and Technology Institute/Pikes Peak Observatory in Colorado Springs which serves approximately 300 students; and John Sobtzak conducted an elementary school presentation on the Colorado Earth Escape Explorer (CU-E3) cubesat  as part of CU's Aerospace Engineering department's Graduate Projects class at Hill City School in Hill City, Minnesota and and Northern Lights Community School in Warba, Minnesota. 

Mentoring

NCAR staff participate in mentoring colleagues and students.

During this year, 117 staff members mentored mentees both inside and outside of NCAR. Rebecca Buchholz (ACOM) was a mentor to students from the Colorado School of Mines, University of Oklahoma and the University of Colorado. Wojciech Grabowski (MMM) was a science mentor for a PhD student from the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, India.; Julie Harris (CISL) was a co-mentor of the ISGB for the CISL Student Assistant ship program during 2017-2018 school year while Gang Lu (HAO) worked with a student from Clemson University over the summer to teach him to process and analyze various data sets and to use the AMIE codes.

NCAR staff members make important contributions through teaching appointments at institutions of higher education in different positions ranging from Graduate Faculty to Professor.

Teaching appointments at institutions of higher education currently number 41. Twelve percent of these appointments occur in 5 international countries; 88% took place in 11 U.S. states. The longest term is 33 years, by Grant Branstator (CGD) who is an Adjunct Professor at Iowa State University. The class sizes range from 4 to 80 students.

External Committee Service

NCAR staff are called upon to participate in and often lead external scientific, technical, policy, and educational committees. These committees are instrumental to advancing and promoting the work of the scientific and technical community.

This year, 181 NCAR staff served in a multitude of roles on 535 external committees (an average of 3.0 committees per participating staff member) for national and international scientific, education, and governmental organizations, including entities such as the American Geophysical Union, the National Academy of Sciences and the Study of Environmental Arctic Change. More than 60% served on more than one committee.

Staff Collaboration Visits to Universities

NCAR staff take leaves to visit other institutions for two weeks or more for intellectual growth, professional development, collaboration with research community peers, community support, teaching, or sabbatical. Examples of work include teaching courses or workshops, lecturing, giving tutorials, working with graduate students on dissertation-focused research, student mentoring, collaborative research, and participating in the host institution's outreach to community colleges, minority-serving institutions, and high schools.

This year, 5 NCAR staff members took leaves at 5 different institutions, ranging from the University of Hawai’i to the University of Leeds.  Among the highlights: Frank Bryan (CGD) participated in a program on Planetary Boundary Layers at Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Naoki Mizukami (RAL) visited the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research to work on the development of hydrologic model parameter estimation tools, and research papers in Leipsig, Germany

APPOINTMENT METRICS

Special Appointments

NCAR Affiliate Scientists

Select university and research-community scientists are invited to carry out long-term, highly interactive, collaborative work with UCAR scientists and are appointed as Affiliate Scientists with three-year terms (see list). This appointment is particularly suitable for parties who desire an extended, close-working relationship on scientific problems of mutual interest. Currently, 46 scientists hold appointments including Dr. Kevin Repasky of Montana State University. Dr. Repasky is collaborating with scientists in the Earth Observing Laboratory(EOL) on developing a deployable version of a low-cost water vapor differential absorption lidar (WV DIAL).

Emeritus/Emerita 

Scientific and Research Engineering staff who have made significant contributions to NCAR through long and distinguished service in senior positions in research may be granted emeritus or emerita status (see list). This designation confers a life-long honorary distinction. Approval of the President and the Board of Trustees is required. Currently the ranks of Emeritus/Emerita number 28 with the recent appointment of Mr. Richard “Rit” Carbone who is continuing his research on root causes of tropical oceanic rainfall errors in highly parameterized global models.*deceased

Scientific and Technical Visits to NCAR

Each year students, scientists, engineers, weather forecasters, and other professionals from around the country and world receive special visitor appointments from labs and programs across NCAR to collaborate with scientific, educational, or technical staff; conduct independent research; or participate in and/or oversee a professional project. Many receive financial support for their visits and some visitors temporarily join the NCAR staff.

This year, colleagues visited NCAR 780 times and hailed from 336 institutions, located in 44 different U.S. states and 38 different countries.