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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!

A delegation from the office of Senator Markwayne Mullin viewed the Horus radar during their visit to the Radar Innovations Lab on April 19, 2014.

SoM/ARRC Ph.D. student Gus Azevedo was just notified that his paper, "UAS-based Low-altitude Freezing Precipitation Observation System: Development Updates and Initial Field Deployment Results", was selected to receive the Best Student Paper and Presenter Award at the 24th Conference on Aviation, Range and Aerospace Meteorology held earlier this year in Baltimore.

Gus's paper discusses the development and field deployment of an Unmanned Aerial Weather Measurement System (WxUAS) designed to sample the low-altitude freezing precipitation environment, which is difficult to observe with existing weather observation systems. This difficulty presents challenges in aviation, as low-altitude freezing precipitation can cause almost invisible hazards. The system leverages UAVs equipped with sensors to measure atmospheric conditions like temperature, humidity, and particle size, as well as a millimeter wave radar for hydrometeor reflectivity and Doppler velocity. Initial testing at Marshall Field during a winter weather event demonstrated the system's ability to effectively sample atmospheric conditions without interference from precipitation, with sensor designs that mitigate issues like sensor heating from UAV components. Results showed the system's potential in capturing the spatial and temporal distribution of low altitude freezing precipitation, providing valuable data that could improve weather forecasting models and aviation safety.

The conference judges thought the work was well organized and very interesting, with one judge pointing out that the new technologies presented "are foundational for moving UAS sensing capabilities forward". Gus is advised by Dr. David Schvartzman.

Recent ECE/ARRC graduate, Precious Jatau, was named recipient of the 2023-2024 Provost's Doctoral Dissertation Award. The award is given annually to recognize outstanding performance by a doctoral student in the areas of Science and Engineering, Social Science, Education and the Professions, and Humanities and Fine Arts. The award will be presented during the Graduate College's Awards Ceremony on April 18.

Precious' dissertation was titled "Machine Learning for Classifying Biological Radar echoes with S-band Polarimetric Radar." He was advised by Dr. Tian Yu and is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher.