Welcome from the Director

Welcome to the Atmospheric Radar Research Center at the University of Oklahoma! The ARRC consists of a vibrant group of faculty and students from both engineering and meteorology, focused on solving challenging radar problems and preparing the next generation of students. Through the collaborative nature instilled in its members, the ARRC has proven effective at developing synergy between science and engineering in the field of weather radar. In the National Weather Center and in its extensive laboratory and radar facilities, meteorology and engineering faculty and students work side-by-side to learn from each other and to tackle tough problems in remote sensing of the atmosphere. This interdisciplinary esprit de corps has already had a profound effect on both the undergraduate and graduate educational experiences in radar provided to OU students. -- Bob Palmer

ARRC Faculty Members Receive Promotions

The Oklahoma Board of Regents have approved the following ARRC faculty members for promotion to Professor: Dr. Yang Hong, Civil Engineering and Environmental Sciences, Dr. Tian-You Yu, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Dr. Guifu Zhang, School of Meteorology, and Dr. Mark Yeary, Electrical and Computer Engineering. In addition, Dr. Yan Zhang was promoted to Associate Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering. "These promotions represent recognition of the tireless efforts, research funding, and dedication to teaching and mentoring our students," said Dr. Robert Palmer, ARRC Director. "I am really proud of each of these colleagues who have played a major role in bringing international recognition to OU's weather radar program."

ARRC Faculty Member Publishes Book

ARRC and CEES faculty member Dr. Yang Hong has published a new book titled "Multiscale Hydrologic Remote Sensing: Perspectives and Applications". The book integrates advances in hydrologic science and innovative remote sensing technologies. Raising the visibility of interdisciplinary research on water resources, it offers a suite of tools and platforms for investigating spatially and temporally continuous hydrological variables and processes. Organized into five parts, it explores hydrologic remote sensing at the local, urban, watershed, and regional scales, as well as the continental and global scale.

The book is a useful reference for students, professionals, scientists, and policy makers involved in the study of global change, hydrologic science, meteorology, climatology, biology, ecology, and the agricultural and forest sciences. It shows how hydrologic remote sensing technologies can be used more effectively to explore global change impacts and improve the design of hydrologic observatories

CEES/ARRC HyDROS Lab Hosts Workshop in Kenya

The CEES/ARRC Hydrometeorology and Remote Sensing Laboratory (HyDROS), jointly with the NASA-SERVIR Mission, hosted a week-long CREST Hydrological Modeling Workshop in Kenya in April. Dr. Xianwu Xue, ARRC/CEES Postdoctoral Fellow, was among representatives from 13 African and Asian countries' Ministries of Hydrometeorology or Disaster Management Agencies in attendance. The goal of the training is to provide technical expertise to participants on CREST- Grid based Distributed Hydrological Model for quantifying stream flow, soil moisture and evapotranspiration by use of NASA satellite rainfall datasets. This is the first workshop of many to transfer NASA and OU jointly developed technology to developing countries.

Ying Bai Receives AMS Energy Conference Student Award

Congratulations to Ying Bai, ARRC and ECE M.S. student, on her selection as a winner of the Third Conference on Weather, Climate and the New Energy Economy Student Competition. Ying won the award of Commendable Oral Presentation for her abstract "Development of Simple Radar Signature Models of Wind Turbine for Knowledge-Aided Wind Turbine Radar Interference Analysis." The competition took place during the American Meteorological Society's Annual Meeting held recently in New Orleans.

James Kurdzo Receives SoM Director's Recognition for Outstanding Service

Congratulations to ARRC and SoM PhD student James Kurdzo for receiving this year's School of Meteorology Director's Recognition for Outstanding Service to the Department as a Graduate Student. The award recognizes the time and effort Jim has put into a wide variety of departmental activities. Jim received a monetary award and was recognized at the College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences Student Award Ceremony on April 19.

Zac Flamig Receives Award for Best Paper in Meteorology

ARRC and SoM M.S. student Zac Flamig is the recipient of this year's Tommy C. Craighead Award for Best Paper in Meteorology. In addition to a monetary award, Zac was recognized at the College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences Student Awards Ceremony, held on Thursday, April 19 in the NWC Atrium. Zac's research interests include flash flood prediction and rainfall estimation using dual-polarization radar. Congratulations Zac!

ARRC Faculty Members Receive Awards

Members of the ARRC faculty were recognized at the 2012 Faculty Tribute Awards Ceremony held recently on the Norman Campus. ARRC Director and SoM Professor Dr. Robert Palmer received the Vice President for Research Award for Outstanding Research Engagement and Dr. Tian-You Yu, ARRC Associate Director and ECE/SoM Associate Professor, was named the Gerald Tuma Presidential Professor. Dr. Robert Huck, ARRC Senior Research Associate and ECE-Tulsa staff member, was recognized for a patent awarded in 2011.

Matthew Kumjian Awarded NCAR Fellowship

Matthew Kumjian, ARRC and SoM PhD student, has been awarded and has accepted a Post-doctoral Fellowship at the Advanced Study Program at the National Center for Atmospheric Reserach (NCAR). The fellowship brings recent PhD students to NCAR to work on a research project of their choosing that is relevant to the NCAR scientific mission. These awards are extremely competitive with many leaders in the Meteorological field having passed through this program, including several faculty members currently on staff at OU's School of Meteorology. Fellowships are for one year with a one-year extension. Congratulations Matt!

Jill Hardy Selected AS NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program Fellow

Congratulations to ARRC and SoM M.S. student Jill Hardy who was recently selected as a 2012 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program Fellow. Jill will receive a three-year $126,000 award that will enable her to complete a research project titled "Probabilistic Flash Flood Forecasting using Ensemble Stormscale Precipitation Forecasts". Her selection was based on her outstanding abilities and accomplishments, as well as her potential to contribute to strengthening the vitality of the US science and engineering enterprise.

International Radar Aeroecolocy Workshop Held at the National Weather Center

There is enormous potential for deploying a variety of radars and observing instruments to quantify animal movements, population densities, diversity, and species phenologies across a wide range of spatial, temporal, and climatic scales. However, realizing this potential requires coordinated advances in the science of "radar aeroecology." Radar aeroecology is an emerging discipline that encapsulates the interests of a broad cross section of the scientific community including meteorology, radar physics, bioinformatics, geography, data processing, and biology.

To help foster research in radar aeroecology and the sharing of information about the tools and theory available to current and future generations of scientists, the Atmospheric Radar Research Center and Oklahoma Biological Survey sponsored an international Radar Aereocology Workshop in Norman on March 5-6 (http://arrc.ou.edu/raw2012/). The mission of this workshop was to: i) discuss opportunities to advance science by exploiting our current knowledge of radar aeroecology; ii) identify pressing needs (i.e. gaps in understanding) in radar aeroecology; iii) develop strategies for addressing the most urgent needs as quickly as possible; iv) gain a better understanding of the needs of institutions and agencies who might use radar aeroecology products in accomplishing their missions; and v) specify long-term goals in congruence with advances in radar, remote sensing and computing technology. The Workshop assembled experts representing a broad cross section of disciplinary expertise from a variety of government and academic institutions from the US and Europe.

ARRC Students Receive Awards

Congratulations to ARRC Students James Kurdzo (SoM) and Fanxing Kong (ECE) for receiving awards during Student Research and Performance Day. Eighty-four graduate students participated in the OU Graduate College sponsored event held March 2nd at the National Weather Center. James placed first in the Science B category for his poster titled "Optimal Waveform Design for Pulse Compression with Weather Radar using a Genetic Algorithm", and Fanxing placed second in the Engineering A category for his poster, "Mitigation of Wind Turbine Clutter for Weather Radar by Adaptive Processing". Both students will be honored at an awards luncheon on April 9th.

New Doppler Radar Unveiled at AMS

Enterprise Electronics Corporation (EEC) in partnership with ARRC members Dr. Robert Palmer, Dr. Boon Leng Cheong, Dr. Yan Zhang and Mr. Redmond Kelley, recently unveiled an innovative low-cost polarimetric Doppler weather radar at the national AMS conference in New Orleans. The next phase of this $1.8M State of Oklahoma EDGE project is to develop an assembly facility in Norman to manufacture and globally market the radars to government and commercial entities that will greatly benefit from their use but who otherwise could not afford to purchase current Doppler radar systems.

David Bodine Receives 2012 NSF EAPSI Fellowship in Japan

Congratulations to David Bodine, PhD student in Meteorology and MS student in Electrical Engineering, on his selection into the National Science Foundation's East Asia and Pacific Summer Institute (EAPSI) for U.S. Graduate Students. The primary goals of EAPSI are to introduce students to East Asia and Pacific science and engineering in the context of a research setting, and to help students initiate scientific relationships that will better enable future collaboration with foreign counterparts. The Japanese institute will last approximately ten weeks, from June to August 2012.