HAO won three of four outstanding accomplishment awards at the UCAR annual holiday celebration & awards presentation. UCAR President Antonio Busalacchi announced the winners to be Stan Solomon for “Mentoring”, and Mark Miesch for “Education and Outreach.” HAO also received the “Scientific and/or Technical Advancement” award for the TIE-GCM model.
Stan Solomon of HAO was presented the Mentoring Award for his dedicated mentoring efforts that directly enhance the professional development of numerous scientists at all stages of their careers, from undergraduates to postdoctoral scientists and beyond. Throughout his tenure at NCAR, Solomon has provided guidance for seven postdoctoral researchers, including two within the last five years. He has directly supervised two graduate students and advised numerous more, including seven in the last five years. Five members of the AIM scientific staff consider Solomon a mentor and have benefited from his guidance over their careers, including advice within the last five years. Additionally, during his time in the senior leadership of HAO he mentored two administrative staff members who have since gone on to distinguished careers at NCAR.
Mark Miesch of HAO was recognized for his supreme dedication to education and outreach. Miesch has dedicated much of his work, and private time, over the years in the dual areas of education and outreach while performing at high levels as a Scientist III. Miesch’s activities have very broad impact: from K-12 through graduate, from small-scale local events to regional science centers and global initiatives, developing novel observatory concepts to composing and compiling materials for television and film. Miesch has an infectious love for science and understanding and is an extremely effective science advocate.
Alan Burns (HAO), Ben Foster (retired HAO), Maura Hagan (Utah State University), Hanli Liu (HAO), Jing Liu (HAO), Gang Lu (HAO), Astrid Maute (HAO), Joe McInerney (HAO), Nick Pedatella (HAO), Liying Qian (HAO), Art Richmond (HAO), Ray Roble (HAO), Cheng Sheng(HAO), Stan Solomon (HAO), Wenbin Wang (HAO), Mike Wiltberger (HAO), Qian Wu (HAO), Binzheng Zhang (HAO), and Eric Sutton (Air Force Research Laboratory)
The NCAR Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Electrodynamics General Circulation Model (TIE-GCM) is a model of the upper atmosphere from approximately 100 to 500 kilometers in altitude. TIE-GCM is based on a long history of model development initiated by Ray Roble, Bob Dickinson, and Cicely Ridley, and carried on by Art Richmond, Ben Foster, and the Atmosphere-Ionosphere-Magnetosphere (AIM) section of HAO. The entire AIM section has been involved in its public release as an open-source community model and in the recent development and release of TIE-GCM v. 2.0. The new version supports higher resolution, extends to higher altitude, uses parallel computations for the electrodynamics, and produces a more accurate description of ionospheric structure. It is used by researchers in the university community and worldwide (129 related publications in the past 5 years) and is the basis for new development of a thermosphere-ionosphere capability in the NCAR Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model—eXtended (WACCM-X). Making the code stable, fixing problems, documenting, and enabling installation on a variety of platforms, from supercomputers to laptops, has been a major endeavor of the AIM section during the last several years, culminating in official release in March 2015.
