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Rosalind Agasti (ECE/ARRC) received the 2025 Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools (MAGS) / ProOuest Distinguished Master's Thesis Award in the category of Mathematics, Physical Sciences, and Engineering.

Nominated by the OU Graduate College, Rosalind's thesis, "Frequency-agile Filtering Antennas for S-band and X-band Applications", documents the design and implementation of novel reconfigurable and highly integrated RF and microwave devices for next-generation communication systems.

Rosalind is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering at OU. She is advised by Drs. Jessica Ruyle and Hjalti Sigmarsson.

Emma Miller, a graduate student in the OU School of Meteorology and with the Advanced Radar Research Center (ARRC), won the 1st Place Student Oral Presentation Award at the Symposium on Radar Research to Operations during the 2025 AMS Annual Meeting in New Orleans, LA.

Her award-winning presentation, "Advancing the Detection and Classification of Wildfire Smoke Using NEXRAD", introduced modifications to the National Weather Service's hydrometeor classification algorithm (HCA) to better identify wildfire smoke, which is currently misclassified as biological scatter. Her work leverages statistical analysis and machine learning techniques to refine smoke classification, providing a more effective way to track smoke plumes in real time. These advancements aim to improve situational awareness for forecasters and emergency responders dealing with wildfires.

Emma graduated from Purdue University in 2023 with degrees in Atmospheric Science and Planetary Sciences. She is currently studying radar observations of wildfire smoke and plans to continue at OU for her PhD, where she will focus on polarimetric observations of wildfires using passive radar to further improve detection and tracking of fire-generated plumes. She is advised by Dr. David Schvartzman.

Thank you to everyone who participated in our Halloween Costume Contest this year! We saw some truly amazing, spooky, and creative costumes across both students and staff. After careful consideration, our judges are excited to announce the winners!

Student Winners:
Best Overall: Cody Kieu for a standout costume that truly captured the Halloween spirit!
Most Creative: Parker Cary for their unique and imaginative costume design!

Faculty & Staff Winners:
Best Overall: Bob Palmer for bringing an unforgettable character to life!
Most Creative: Daniel Royer for showing an impressive level of creativity and originality!

Congratulations to all of our winners, and thank you to everyone who dressed up and made this Halloween extra special. We cannot wait to see what you all come up with next year!

The 2024 Weathernews Scholarship has been awarded to Aimee Matland-Dixon, PhD student in the School of Meteorology and the ARRC. Aimee’s work was highlighted during the 13th Workshop on WNI/OU Collaboration held October 30 in the Radar Innovations Lab.

The $5,000 award, established in 2017 to enhance advanced research and development of radar technology, is presented annually to an outstanding ARRC student studying weather radar, observations of the atmosphere, data analysis, and implementation.

Pictured with Aimee are Shogo Kaneko, researcher, Masaya Yamamoto, CTO, and Daisuke Abe, Executive Director, all from Weathernews, Berrien Moore, Dean of the College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences, and Bob Palmer, Executive Director of the ARRC.

The ARRC put on a festive light display during the 2024 OU Homecoming parade on Friday night

The ARRC shows off their phased array weather radar to the director of “Twisters” Lee Issac Chung during a recent visit to OU

Congratulations to SoM/ARRC Ph.D. candidate Aimee Matland-Dixon on being awarded an FY2024 Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) research grant! The FINESST program provides research grants to graduate students who are designing and performing research projects relevant to interests of the NASA Science Mission Directorate. The Earth Science Research Program contributes to NASA's mission through the following key questions:

• How is the global Earth system changing?
• What causes these changes in the Earth system?
• How will the Earth system change in the future?
• How can Earth system science provide societal benefit?

Radar observations are key to improving the physical understanding of atmospheric processes and their representation in global cloud resolving models, such as the coupled process continuum of clouds, convection and precipitation, a priority "designated observable" identified in the 2017 Earth Science Decadal Survey.

Aimee's proposed research focuses on improving the estimation of precipitation rates, fluxes, and processes by synergizing the latest radar technology such as spaceborne and ground-based phased-array radars. The goal is to use information from active ground-based and spaceborne sensors to improve convective characterization and optimize the design of future networks and constellations which has implications for our understanding of the water cycle, climate variability, and weather/atmospheric dynamics. Aimee is advised by Dr. Pierre Kirstetter with Dr. Robert Palmer and will continue her Ph.D. studies at the University of Oklahoma.

ARRC graduate student Rosalind Agasti was awarded the Graduate Dean's Distinguished Thesis Prize in Science and Engineering for her outstanding master's thesis titled "Frequency-agile filtering antennas for S-band and X-band applications". The thesis is available at here. The award has handed out by the Dean of the Graduate College Randy Hewes at the Graduate College's Awards Ceremony on April 18.

A team of ARRC/ECE graduate students, Min-Duan Tzeng, Hsiu-Wei Hsu, Shin Yi Low, and Wei-Chun Hwang, were awarded 2nd place in the Radar Teams Challenge held during the 2024 IEEE Radar Conference in Denver. A limited number of teams from the United States, Europe, and industry engineers, were selected to compete in the event.

Pictured receiving the award are Min-Duan Tzeng and Hsiu-Wei Hsu. Congratulations, team!