Management and Administration
Unidata Community Equipment Awards
Status Report: September 2011
Terry Mitchell
NSF provides the Unidata Program Center up to $100k in equipment grant funds each year. In alignment with the Unidata 2013 proposal, the Equipment Awards Program is designed to broaden participation and promote the use of Unidata tools and systems (e.g., THREDDS, NetCDF, IDV, GIS connections) to support education and research on various aspects of climate studies (e.g., diagnostics, change and impacts), by providing grants to be used in the procurement of new computers and equipment including upgrades to existing classroom and laboratory equipment.
This year special consideration was given to proposals that:
- Include installation of either/both THREDDS Data Server and RAMADDA to share data relevant to furthering Unidata's mission with the community at-large. This includes but is not limited to data from real-time IDD/LDM feeds, local observations, data from local modeling efforts, case study collections, and climate data.
- Include installation of a prototype AWIPS II EDEX server, when AWIPS II is made available in the Fall 2011 time frame, to share data relevant to furthering Unidata's mission with the community at-large.
A Request for Proposals was sent out on December 9, 2010 with a March 18, 2011 submission deadline. A review panel was formed and met on April 12 at the Unidata Program Center. It was another competitive year and the panel recommended funding eight of the nine proposals received:
CIRES at University of Colorado, Dr. Catherine Smith - "Improving Access to a Climate Data Repository Using Unidata Tools"
New Mexico State University, Dr. David DuBois - “The New Mexico State Climate Office and CARSAME Portal for Community Access to Meteorological, Satellite and Model Archives"
Pennsylvania State University, Dr. Charles F. Pavloski – “IDD Ingest Relay Replacement in Support of the THREDDS/RAMADDA Server System at Penn State"
Rutgers University, Dr. John Kerfoot – “Upgrade of Existing Computer Hardware to Facilitate Processing and Distribution of Large Oceanographic and Environmental Datasets from the Rutgers University Coastal Ocean Observation Laboratory"
San Jose State University, Dr. Alison Bridger – “SJSU Unidata Equipment Proposal"
Texas A&M University, Dr. Gerald Creager – "Upgrading LDM Server and Archive Systems to Support Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A&M University
and in the Broader Community"
University of Salento, Italy, Dr. Giovanni Aloisio, - "Establishment of a Multiplexed THREDDS Installation and a RAMADDA Collaboration Environment
for Community Access to Climate Change Data"
University of South Florida, Dr. Jennifer Collins, - "Upgrading Meteorological Analysis and Visualization Capability"
Congratulations to all of the recipients and we thank the Review Panel members, NSF and the Unidata community for their continued support of the Equipment Awards Program.