Howard Van Dam

Howard Van Dam joined the Unidata Program Center (UPC) team on January 14 2019 as a Software Engineer. A Colorado native, he has explored the wonders of the state from the highest mountains to the eastern plains.

Howard started out studying music at University, but switched to electronics and electrical engineering as a way to provide an income while continuing to enjoy performing in jazz, classical, and musical theatre settings. He received a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Colorado after completing degrees at Pikes Peak and Front Range Community Colleges. Howard also holds a CompTIA Security+ certification and is passionate about all things cybersecurity.

The Unidata Program Center's two summer student interns — Hailey Johnson from the University of Florida and Jon Thielen from Iowa State University — have come to the end of their summer appointments. After a summer of dedicated work they presented the results of their projects to the UPC staff on August 3, 2018. You can find videos of their presentations to the UPC staff on the Unidata Seminar Series page.

Jon Thielen

Jonathan Thielen joined the Unidata Program Center as a software development summer intern on May 21, 2018. Jonathan will be a senior this fall at Iowa State University, majoring in meteorology and mathematics. His current research revolves around WRF sensitivity studies, focusing on convective morphology of mesoscale convective systems. This summer, Jon will be working on further integrating xarray into MetPy and implementing cross section functionality.

Hailey Johnson

Hailey Johnson joined the Unidata Program Center as a software development summer intern on May 21, 2018. Hailey is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Geological Sciences with a minor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Florida. Her dissertation research focuses on numerical methods and applications in coastal sciences, concentrating on improvements to numerical modeling of coastline evolution. Her main goal during her internship will be improving the THREDDS Data Server user experience, primarily through a redesign of the TDS web interface.

Cece Hedrick

Cece Hedrick joined the Unidata Program Center (UPC) team on October 16th, 2017 as a software developer. Her first day at the office coincided with the joint meeting of Unidata's Users' and Strategic Advisory Committees, so … we pretty much threw her in the deep end of the pool. On the bright side, Cece got an instant introduction to the community we're working for.

Cece studied astrophysics and computer science at the University of Nebraska. As an astronomer she has worked in a wide range of research categories from supermassive black holes, circumstellar disks, and symbiotic stars to the Martian atmosphere as part of NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission. As a computer scientist she has also explored a wide range of research topics, such as, bioinformatics, modeling and simulation for war gaming, and user experience/human computer interaction within the learning sciences. As a software developer, Cece has previously worked on military secure messaging and data transfer solutions, cable television software product continuous integration, and space weather prediction and analysis software.