Millersville University in Pennsylvania will be hosting a Unidata Regional Software Training Workshop April 6-8, 2017. Unidata software developers will be leading the Python-focused workshop, which will cover the use of the MetPy and Siphon packages in the context of atmospheric science and introduce the National Weather Service's Common AWIPS Visualization Environment (CAVE) along with Python tools for working with AWIPS data services. A basic familiarity with Python is assumed — check out the Unidata Online Python Training for a refresher.

Unidata holds regional workshops in part to facilitate easy access to software training for those who may not be able to travel to training workshops held at the Unidata Program Center in Boulder, Colorado. Attendance is explicitly not limited to Millersville students and staff; we encourage those within easy travel distance to consider attending.

The EarthCube Science Support Office (ESSO) is searching for a Technical Officer to develop and manage a high-level cyberinfrastructure strategy aligned with EarthCube goals, vision, and user needs. The Technical Officer will work with EarthCube-funded projects, the EarthCube Council of Data Facilities, and other efforts in the cyberinfrastructure community to communicate and facilitate the accomplishment of goals, objectives, and milestones in accordance with EarthCube's Implementation Plan.

John Leeman joined the Unidata Program Center software development team on January 30th, 2017. John obtained bachelor's degrees in meteorology and geophysics from the University of Oklahoma in 2012, and a PhD in geoscience from Penn State in 2017. He has worked in research fields ranging from gas hydrate thermodynamics to SODAR and boundary layer instrumentation, and did his doctoral work in earthquake physics. John's software development experience includes work on the seafloor process simulator at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and telemetry analysis tools for NASA's Morpheus lunar lander project. The common thread amongst all of these projects was “the development of new tools and software to attack previously intractable problems.”

As a researcher himself, John brings first-hand knowledge of how scientists want to interact with their research tools to Unidata. He joined the Unidata Program Center because, he says, “making well tested and reliable tools with which to conduct reproducible science is probably the largest challenge and most needed area of innovation in research today.”

This year's annual American Meteorological Society meeting, was held January 22-26 in Seattle, Washington. We were happy to see many of the Unidata community members participating in the meeting at our booth in the exhibit hall, and to meet so many prospective community members at the AMS Student Conference.

With so much going on at the conference, we can't cover everything here. Instead, we present some highlights as recalled by UPC staff members who attended.

Some past student representatives

The Unidata Users Committee is seeking nominations for a Graduate Student representative to join the group of nine university faculty members currently serving on this committee. Nominees should be Graduate Students who use Unidata software, hold a strong interest in the Unidata program, and have an interest in learning how a community-based program like Unidata is governed. Nominations may be made by any community member, and self-nominations are acceptable. This position will be for a two-year term beginning with the fall 2017 Users Committee meeting.

In addition to bringing a valuable student perspective to Unidata committee discussions, Graduate Student representatives make numerous professional contacts at Unidata and in the university community at large, and gain insights stemming from participation in Unidata program governance. The Unidata Users committee meets twice a year in Boulder, CO; the Unidata Program Center pays all travel and lodging expenses for the student representative's travel to committee meetings.