Supporting and Enhancing Formal Science Education at All Levels

SERE supports life-long learning and professional development in the sciences for a broad audience.  Through a variety of collaborative research and visitor programs, SERE scientists interact with researchers worldwide.  ASP provides opportunities for graduate and postgraduate students, early career scientists and faculty through a range of ongoing and one-time development and research opportunities. ASP also supports early career scientists both at NCAR and within the academic community through professional development, training, and scientific colloquia. ISSE conducts workshops and colloquia that include researchers, stakeholders and professionals on topics of societal importance, expanding public awarenes, and understanding of climate change.  CCB, through its Climate Affairs activity, is providing educators and students with a framework for investigating and understanding the importance of climate change and climate variability.  All SERE programs have ongoing visitor and outreach programs, as well as providing opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to participate in research activities.

Graduate Visitor Program (HIGHLIGHT)

Faculty Fellowship Program

ASP Summer Colloquia (2)

Junior Faculty Forum on Future Scientific Directions

Graduate Visitor Program

	Graduate student visitors conduct research in pursuit of their thesis in collaboration with NCAR scientific staff.  Here a graduate student visitor stands next to a microwave radiometer on the Mesa Lab roof.  She is using data from this instrument to develop a new water retrieval algorithm.

Background, Rationale and Description

During FY2006, the Graduate Visitor Program enjoyed its inaugural year in the Advanced Study Program (ASP) and at NCAR. The program was created in response to multiple requests that the ASP received from NCAR scientific staff for graduate student support. It was also developed in response to university community requests for access to NCAR resources and facilities that are not available at a university. Although the ASP sponsors three NCAR Graduate Fellows who are working toward their PhDs, ASP recognized the need to establish an NCAR program that would sponsor a larger number of meaningful visits and collaborations with graduate students and their advisors. The Graduate Visitor Program responds to that need.

The Graduate Visitor Program provides NCAR scientific staff with opportunities to bring graduate students to NCAR for three- to 12-month collaborative visits. These visits are undertaken with the endorsement and complementary support of the graduate students' thesis advisors. While residing at NCAR, the students conduct research in pursuit of their thesis requirements. The students receive support to cover their travel and living expenses in Boulder. Funding is also provided to allow the students' advisors to visit NCAR for up to two weeks. While at NCAR, the students have access to NCAR resources and facilities. The students' home institutions continue to pay the students' salary, benefit, and tuition expenses. The program was conceived and implemented in 2006, but will be ongoing.

This program supports multiple scientific priorities contained in the 2006 NCAR Strategic Plan, but those priorities vary in accordance with the student visitors' backgrounds and research interests. On a broader level, by actively engaging a diverse group of graduate students, and by bringing them to the NCAR workplace, the program supports the following three priorities in support of cultivating a diverse and creative workforce:

1. Enhancing science education at all levels
2. Engaging a broader and more diverse community
3. Maintaining an innovative and creative workplace.

Inputs, Outputs and Outcomes for FY2006

ASP received 24 applications for Graduate Visitor Program visits between June 2006 and January 2007. Of those applications, 19 students were funded, and of those, 13 included at least one visit by the advisor. In FY2006, 14 student visits began. In addition, six advisors visited NCAR in order to collaborate with students and NCAR scientific staff. The cost of this program is low given the number of visits; approximately $105K in FY2006. The ASP office conducts the application and selection process for this program, working closely with the NCAR laboratories and divisions who host the students.

Several of the NCAR scientific staff members who hosted graduate visitors indicated that important new collaborations and work was completed during the students' visits. For example, from a CGD Scientist:

"[The Student's] visit here built a collaboration between Scripps scientists and NCAR scientists; the most important off-spring will be a versatile high resolution regional coupled model (named SCORE) that is accessible to the climate community to investigate mesoscale processes that are not resolved by the Community Climate System Model (CCSM)."

A CISL scientist had this to say about the visit he hosted:

"She is a talented graduate student whose thesis application depends on interaction with climate scientists. Transferring new statistics to substantial geophysical problems is part of the mission of the Geophysical Statistics Project (GSP). In the past we have found that experiences like hers have a multiplier effect where other statistical researchers are aware of applications in climate and also learn about NCAR."

Almost all hosts agreed that the time spent at NCAR would contribute significantly to the student's thesis, and that most would be returning to their home institution to write and publish papers based on their work at NCAR.

Several of the graduate student visitors and their advisors were very pleased with the program. They indicate that the visit has given them access to resources and facilities that they do not have at their home institution. In addition, at least one of the graduate visitors from a Minority Serving Institution (MSI) plans to apply to the ASP Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (please link) this year.

Projected Inputs, Outputs, and Outcomes for future years

The program will continue at approximately the same level in FY2007 as in FY2006. However, considerably more funds should be available for this program in FY2008 once the current NCAR Graduate Fellows complete their terms. At this time we plan to phase out the Graduate Fellows program and allocate associated funds to the Graduate Visitor Program.

The Graduate Visitor Program is still too new to measure or understand its full impacts. Yet, the ASP recognizes that students and their advisors are the bridge builders between NCAR and the university community. The ASP contends that the Graduate Visitor Program will seed significant and long-term collaborations. This program helps to extend NCAR capabilities by bringing students on site to work on research of mutual interest and by providing NCAR scientific staff with the opportunities to participate in graduate student thesis research. Through this program, NCAR increases its contribution to the education of the next generation of scientists, researchers, and faculty. In turn, the graduate students help invigorate NCAR and their home institutions. Finally, the Graduate Visitor Program provides opportunities to partner with universities and engage Ph.D students from underrepresented groups in NCAR research activities. The ASP anticipates that the program will help diversify the future workforce at NCAR and in the geoscience professoriate and research communities.

The Graduate Visitor Program is sponsored by the National Science Foundation and by all the Universities and Institutions who co-host their NCAR visits.

Faculty Fellowship Program

The Faculty Fellowship (FFP) program was started in 2005 in order to fund long-term meaningful collaborative visits between the NCAR scientific staff and the university community. The program provides opportunities for university faculty to spend 3 to 12 months at NCAR, and for NCAR scientific staff to spend 3 to 12 months at a university. University faculty may also bring graduate students. In FY2006, the program sponsored travel costs, temporary living per diem, graduate student expenses, and some salary.

This year, applicants were asked to submit proposals and budgets for 3- to 12-month visits that occurred between 1 June 2006 and 31 May 2008. ASP received 29 viable applications, including 26 from external applicants and 3 from internal applicants. Of the 26 external applicants, 17 were from faculty at UCAR member universities. The requests totaled over six times the budget available for this program, which is in stark contrast to 2005, when the ASP only received a total of five applications. After the applications were reviewed by the University Relations Committee, 8 applicants were extended offers for visits in FY2006, and 7 applicants received offers for visits in FY2007 (including two internal applicants). Six of the eight approved FFP visitors for FY2006 arrived during the summer of 2006, along with a total of three graduate students.

These appointments have the objective of strengthening the ties between NCAR and the university community by supporting meaningful, long-term collaborations. (FY2006 institutions represented: U Texas at San Antonio; U Miami; U Colorado at Boulder and Denver; Texas A&M U; and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.) The program gives university faculty an opportunity to take advantage of their National Center in a meaningful and productive way, while providing unique research opportunities for the accompanying graduate students. Across the board, each of the six FY2006 visitors found their FFP visit to be an outstanding opportunity that was both educational and productive. In addition, all agreed that the collaborations would continue. The testimonials of the FFP participants can be found here. The ASP plans to continue this program at the same level in FY2007. NSF funds this program.

ASP Summer Colloquia

For several decades, the ASP has hosted at least one 2-week colloquium every summer on an emerging science topic of interest to the NCAR community. The colloquium is designed for graduate students in a new or rapidly developing areas of research for which good course materials may not yet be available. In recent years, the colloquia have had both a lecture component and a hands-on tutorial component. NCAR Scientific staff members write proposals for colloquia topics, and in the event that their proposal is selected, organize the colloquium curriculum with logistical support provided by ASP.

In FY2006, there were two two-week-long summer colloquia: 1) The Art of Climate Modeling, and 2) The Challenge of Convective Forecasting.

• The Art of Climate Modeling was conceived and organized by Philip Rasch (CGD), Natalie Mahowald (CGD), and David Noone (U Colorado, Boulder). The motivating goals for the colloquium were to: 1) introduce the students to the theoretical underpinnings of working with a coupled modeling system (not just each component); 2) provide some exposure to the broad range of problems that such models are well suited for and where the model limitations prohibit robust science; and 3) develop in students a competency in practical issues associated with using the NCAR Community Climate System Model (CCSM). One overarching theme of the initial planning sessions was to provide training for a group of students who would likely be involved in developing future generations of climate models rather than appealing to those who would primarily be using models in application. These goals worked toward fulfilling a lack of advanced level training in climate modeling in the United Sttates, as well as internationally. The organizers believe that these goals were met by the colloquium. Participation included a group of 29 lecturers and 31 students, representing 22 different universities.

Students of the ASP 2006 Summer Colloquium, The Art of Climate Modeling, gather around the organizer Phil Rasch after the opening reception.  This colloquium covered so much ground that the reception included an opening talk, and students had homework before they even arrived and virtually every night of the colloquium.  Nevertheless, the workshop was rated very highly by the participants; the average grade was 9.6 out of 10, with 21 out of 30 students rating the course a 10 out of 10.

• The Challenge of Convective Forecasting was conceived and organized by Morris Weisman (MMM) and Lance Bosart (State U New York, Albany). Convection represents one of the fundamental modes of instability in the atmosphere, creating significant, often damaging weather phenomena on a daily basis worldwide. Short-term explicit forecasting of convection represents a real, new opportunity, as recent results from high-resolution forecast models show a surprising ability at times to forecast the timing, location, and mode of significant convective outbreaks as far as 36 hours in advance. The colloquium summarized the recent advances made in the understanding and prediction of mid-latitude convective weather over the 0- to 36-hour timeframe, and described the scientific and technological challenges and opportunities available to future researchers. Participation included a group of 15 instructors and 24 students representing 16 different universities.

Participants and lecturers of the ASP 2006 Summer Colloquium The Challenge of Convective Forecasting take time out of their full schedule to pose for a picture.  The Colloquium lasted for two weeks from July 10-21 and brought in 24 students from 16 universities.  Students participated in lectures, hands-on tutorials, and presentations in an effort to learn up to date information about the challenging topic of Convective Forecasting.

The ASP will continue to host summer colloquia as these colloquia provide a service to both the NCAR scientific community and the university community. ASP plans to host a minimum of one colloquium during the summer of 2007. The topic has not yet been determined. The ASP Summer Colloquium Series is funded by the NSF.

Junior Faculty Forum on Future Scientific Directions

Participants and lecturers of the Junior Faculty Forum on Future Scientific Directions take a short break from their 3-day meeting in August.  The workshop brought together a group of early career faculty and NCAR scientists to discuss three challenging topics in the atmospheric sciences.  The workshop provides opportunities to initiate new collaborations between NCAR scientists and university faculty.

Beginning in 2003, the Advanced Study Program and the Early Career Scientist Assembly (ECSA) began hosting an annual forum on future scientific directions at NCAR. The objective of this forum is to bring together junior faculty and members of NCAR's ECSA to discuss selected topics in the Geosciences. This forum is open to non-tenured faculty at universities who are within five years of their first professorial academic appointment. In addition to promoting scientific discussion, an intended goal of the forum is to encourage development of professional relationships between members of the ECSA and UCAR institutions.

The Forum targets two to three specific topics of interest based on feedback from early career staff from NCAR and the university community. In FY2006, the topics included: 1) The Science of Communicating Uncertainty in Weather and Climate; 2) Regional and Global Models: A study in model sensitivities to various parameters; and 3) Air Quality Management: Recent progress and future directions. Each topic had about 15 junior faculty participants from numerous disciplines and institutions from across the nation, as well as a few international participants. The forum was highlighted by some top senior participants hailing bothfrom NCAR and other institutions across the nation including: Rick Anthes (President of UCAR), Tim Killeen (Director of NCAR), Morgan Granger (Carnegie Mellon U), Sverre Vedal (U Washington), Jerome Faast (Pacific Northwest Laboratory), Linda Mearns (ISSE), Sasha Madronich (ACD), and Doug Nychka (IMAGe), among others.

Although it is too soon to determine if any collaborations will be forged, it is evident that participants from each topic have found potential collaborators, and it is likely that some of these will lead to meaningful interdisciplinary projects. Participants of the air quality topic have drafted a white paper, and participants of the other two topics have expressed an interest in writing a paper or manuscript for their topic as well. The Junior Faculty Forum will continue in FY2007 and beyond. The Junior Faculty Forum on Future Scientific Directions is funded by the NSF.