EOL Management

Laboratory Management

Roger Wakimoto - [email]

Roger Wakimoto is no stranger to NCAR. He has been EOL's Director since 2005 and has been making frequent visits since 1982, when he studied wind shear in the landmark project JAWS (Joint Airport Weather Studies).   “Throughout my career I’ve spent so much time in Boulder that I feel like it’s my second home,” says Dr. Wakimoto.

Before joining EOL, Wakimoto held various positions at UCLA, including the Chair of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences. When he started as an Assistant professor there in 1983, he says he took a chance: “There were essentially no observationalists in this department. It was very heavy on modeling and theory. That did not bother me in the slightest. I felt it was a challenge, and I embraced it."

Karyn Sawyer - [email]

Since February, 2005, Karyn Sawyer has been the Assistant Director of the Earth Observing Laboratory responsible for day-to-day operations of all seven facilities, as well as oversight for all EOL field activities.

Sawyer has held various positions at NCAR/UCAR since 1972 including Special Assistant to the Director of NCAR and Head, International Projects at UCAR. Since 1979, her work has concentrated on international project coordination and specialized logistic support to international field campaigns. She was the administrative manager for the US summer Monsoon Experiment (MONEX) in India from April-October 1979 and served as field manager for the US solar Eclipse Expeditions to India in 1980 and to Indonesia in 1983. Working with US federal agencies, she actively participated in the US India Science and Technology Initiative from 1979-90; and the US/PRC Meteorology Bilateral from 1984 - 94. She served as the Logistics Director for TOGA Coupled Ocean and Atmosphere Experiment (COARE) in 1992-93 and for the Central Pacific Experiment (CEPEX) in 1993.
 
From 1996 to 2005, Sawyer was Director of the Joint Office for Science Support (JOSS) at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). JOSS is an office of approximately 80 scientific, technical, and administrative specialists whose mission is to support the geophysical research community.

Facility Managers

Computing, Data and Software Facility (CDS) - Mike Daniels - [email]

Mike Daniels started at NCAR as a student programmer and progressed as a software engineer and system administrator within the Research Aviation Facility (RAF).  In 1999 he became the group head for EOL's (then ATD's) Research Data Program and in the fall of 2005, he became the EOL/CDS Manager, a job that expands data services beyond UCAR and includes responsibility for the software engineering systems in EOL.

Throughout his career, Mike has participated in promoting data services as a vital part of EOL's service to the community.  "I feel honored to be leading the application of these services in the context of the EOL mission and service to the geosciences community.  My staff feel a strong sense of mission in enabling the research objectives of the scientific community through these comprehensive, efficient and state-of-the-art data services.  I have been fortunate to have observed and participated in the exciting and tremendous growth of these services over the past few decades.  It is a fast-paced area and each project shows us new concepts to explore and new ways we can incorporate the needs of our community into the dynamic portfolio of services we provide."

Design and Fabrication Services (DFS) - Jack Fox - [email]

In 1966, high school sophomore Jack Fox spent the summer as an intern in NCAR's machine shop. He was hooked. "I compared every job I had after that to working at NCAR," he says. "I always wanted to come back."

Today, Jack is manager of NCAR's Design and Fabrication Services (DFS), which includes that very same machine shop. His team of 18 mechanical engineers and instrument makers designs and builds highly specialized tools and equipment for research in the atmospheric sciences. Working closely with researchers who will use the equipment in the field, the group fashions aircraft instrumentation, radars, laboratory equipment, balloon-borne instruments, satellites, ocean-going systems, and more.

Jack's favorite part of the job is brainstorming with researchers who come to the machine shop with everything from hazy visions of the instruments they want to highly detailed drawings they've prepared. "I get involved in the early stages of planning and it's a lot of fun," Jack says. "A scientist has an idea of what he or she wants to accomplish; we figure out how to build that instrument to make it do what it needs to do."

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Field Project Services (FPS) - Brigitte Baueurle - [email]

Brigitte manages EOL's Field Project Services facility where she works with a small group of Project Managers who help scientists in the planning, implementation, and coordination of scientific field campaigns such as VOCALS.

 Brigitte grew up in a fairly small and rather traditional town in southern Germany, but realized early on that she had inherited her ancestors’ gene for “Wanderlust” – this translates roughly into “joy of moving around”. She left for college to get a Bachelor’s degree in Biology, being primarily interested in microbiology and entomology. During her third year in college she seized a great opportunity to participate in a one-year exchange program between the University of Tuebingen and Oregon State University. One year turned into three and she ended up getting a Master’s degree in Oceanography. Looking back, graduate school turned out to be a fantastic experience, not only because she got to do real research but also because she was inspired by her fellow students from all over the world who shared similar interests and experiences.

After graduate school she got a summer job with the University of Alaska, Juneau, where she spent several months on a yacht sailing from Seward to Homer and back, collecting seaweed along various beaches to assess the impact of the Exxon Valdez oil spill on marine organisms. She is probably one of very few people who can say that they own an algae collection and are not referring to their refrigerator! Once the summer was over, she got a phone call from her former graduate adviser asking whether she would be interested in moving to Boulder to join his office to coordinate and plan one of the biggest ocean/atmosphere research projects in the 20th century. The most appealing part of the job was that she would temporarily move to Townsville, Australia and also get to travel to various places including the Solomon Islands and China. After that she was hooked; she had found a profession that allowed her to combine her interest in science with her enjoyment of travel and curiosity for different people and cultures.

In-situ Sensing Facility (ISF) - Steve Cohn - [email]

Steve came to NCAR in 1994. He has a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science from MIT and undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy. Since coming to NCAR Steve's goal has been to advance the instruments and measurement techniques available to university researchers. Prior to becoming the In-Situ Sensing Facility (ISF) Manager in 2005 he was the Chief Scientist of the ISS group. His research has ranged from advanced measurement techniques for turbulence and wind to the study of boundary layer flows in complex terrain. Making the transition to a Facility Manager meant less time for science, but it has been full of challenges Steve has embraced. "I love when we can improve on existing technology and come up with something that is more effective at making critical measurements. My job as a manager is to do everything I can to help our staff succeed in doing just that."

Steve's introduction to NCAR was serendipitous. While a post grad at McGill University in Montreal, he came to Boulder to visit NOAA and see how they were using wind profilers. During that trip he took time to visit a colleague at NCAR/ATD (now EOL) who introduced him to the then-ISS Chief Scientist and the rest, as they say, was history. "EOL is such a natural fit for me because as a scientist I've been interested equally in applying technology to measurements and in understanding how the atmosphere works." 

Research Aviation Facility (RAF) - Jeff Stith - [email]

Jeffrey Stith has managed the Research Aviation Facility (RAF) since 1999.  He received his Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences in 1978 from the University of Washington and most of his career prior to joining EOL was at the University of North Dakota (UND), where he was the Chair of the Atmospheric Sciences Department (1990 to 1999) and held the title of Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Sciences. 

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Remote Sensing Facility (RSF) - J. (Vivek) Vivekanandan - [email]

Vivek has been at NCAR since 1991. He has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Colorado State University. He holds several patents and won the NCAR Outstanding Publication Award in 2000. He is currently an associate editor for the journal Radio Science of the American Geophysical Union.

As manager of EOL's Remote Sensing Facility, Jothiram (Vivek) Vivekanandan (EOL/RAL) specializes in the theory, modeling, and observational aspects of atmospheric remote sensing. In particular, he works on interpreting the responses of remote sensing instruments to clouds and precipitation using mathematical models and actual field observations.

Technology Development Facility (TDF) - Alan Fried - [email]

A chemist by training, Alan manages EOL’s Technology Development Facility, where he identifies and explores new opportunities for developing state-of-the-art instruments for atmospheric research. As part of this effort, he maintains a research program dedicated to developing new spectroscopic instruments for airborne platforms and associated measurements of trace gases, with the goal of improving our understanding of atmospheric processes and transformations related to hydrocarbon oxidation.

Alan and his group, in collaboration with atmospheric modelers, have been studying formaldehyde, an important trace gas and radical source, throughout the troposphere and lower stratosphere. The studies are uncovering new processes and unexplained results as well as providing key model constraints in hydrocarbon oxidation studies. Most recently, Alan and colleagues have documented the importance of convective transport of formaldehyde and its precursors during summer months in forming radicals and ozone in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere.

Alan has a doctorate in physical chemistry from Ohio State University. He first came to NCAR in 1977 as a postdoctoral researcher, returning in 1986 as part of ESSL/ACD. He headed the Analytical Photonics and Optoelectronics Laboratory (APOL) group, a joint effort between EOL and ACD, before moving into his current position.