News Archive

2006

• August 2006 - V. Chandrasekar (Chandra), CASA Deputy Director, meets with President of India.
  When ECE Professor Chandra visited India in August to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the prominent Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), he was not planning to meet with the country's president. But that's what happened when President APJ Abdul Kalam discovered his work and invited him for a meeting at his official residence, Rashtrapati Bhavan, in New Delhi. Chandra met with President Kalam in his office. He said Kalam was particularly interested in his book and research, and wanted to learn about the societal implications of his work on radar systems for flood mitigation. "I presented an overview of our programs and he really wanted to hear about the societal impact of our research," said Chandra. "It is obvious that President Kalam is passionately committed to scientific exploration and discovery."

• May 6, 2006 - CASA launches the first Student Test Bed radar atop the Stefani Building at UPRM.
  The focus of the Student Test Bed is to establish and validate the Quantitative Precipitation Estimation (QPE) in the variable terrain of the western part of Puerto Rico, while addressing the Earth's curvature and terrain-induced concerns with the TJUA NEXRAD radar measurements for the lower troposphere in the area. Based on a modification of a Raytheon MK2 marine radar, the radar will provide an umbrella observation over a low power, small area coverage dense network of four Off-the-Grid radars currently under development by UMass students. Completely led and managed by students from CASA's core and partner universities, the deployment of the radar represents a very important achievement for the Student Test Bed goals and engineering education.
• March 9, 2006 - CASA Unveils Second Radar Test Bed.
  CASA's second radar test bed, and our very first end-to-end DCAS network is being deployed and readied for operation in Oklahoma. The system has 4 radars running atop towers at Rush Springs, Lawton, Chickasha, and Cyril, Oklahoma. Based on the design of the MA1 prototype test bed, these radars will send real-time data over the OneNet data/ISP infrastructure to a Systems Operation Control Center at OU that will diagnose the atmosphere, identify and track tornadoes and other hazards in real-time, and issue radar beam steering commands that optimize the sampling of the atmosphere in response to multiple end user needs. Built by students, faculty, and staff from across CASA's extended partnership, this system-level test bed represents a very significant milestone toward realizing CASA's vision. For more information about the test bed launch, please read the attached press release.
• January 27, 2006 - Engineers from UMass traveled to the University of Oklahoma to begin the assembly and installation of CASA's first end-to-end systems test bed.

2005

• November 7, 2005 - Brenda Philips, CASA Director for Industry, Government, and End User Partnerships, and Havidan Rodriguez, University of Delaware Disaster Research Center Director, give presentation at National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) "Was*Is" Workshop in Boulder, CO.
• October 24 - 29, 2005 - CASA faculty to present papers and posters at the AMS 32nd Conference on Radar Meteorology in Albuquerque, NM.
• October 21, 2005 - Missy Taft and Jack Barry give WeatherRATS presentation at the National Science Teacher's Association (NSTA) regional convention in Hartford, CT.
• October 2005 - CASA Deputy Director, V. Chandrasekar (CSU), is elected to the grade of Fellow of the American Meteorological Society.  
• September 9, 2005 - CASA Industrial Partner, Vaisala, offers five student internships in 2006. Internships range from conducting research at their Helsinki test bed to being part of the research and development team at the Boulder, Colorado or Tucson, Arizona facilities where work is being carried out on radio-sondes and radar wind profilers.
• September 2, 2005 - CASA's first DCAS radar node is installed on the Massachusetts test bed tower. Designed and fabricated by a multi-campus CASA team, the radar uses a Raytheon-supplied magnetron transmitter, custom-developed receiver, and a data processor built in collaboration with Dynamic Sensing Technologies. This node, which underwent initial field testing last spring in CASA's Front-Range test bed in Colorado, is a prototype for CASA's 4-node DCAS test bed, which will be installed in Southwestern Oklahoma beginning January 2006.
• August 1, 2005 - CASA OU Faculty to present papers at the 17th Conference on Numerical Weather Prediction.
• Mingjing Tong - Simultaneous Retrieval of Microphysical Parameters and Atmospheric State Variables with Radar Data and Ensemble Kalman Filter Method. View the extended abstract.
• Elaine Godfrey - Assimilation of Simulated Network Radar Data of Varied Storm Types Using EnSRF for Convective Storm Analyses and Forecasts. View the extended abstract.
• Youngsun Jung - Assimilation of Polarimetric Radar Data Using Ensemble Kalman Filter: Experiments with Simulated Data. View the extended abstract.
• Haixia Liu - Retrieval of Moisture from GPS Slant-path Water Vapor Observations Using 3DVAR with Isotropic and Anisotropic Recursive Filters. View the extended abstract.
• June 30, 2005 - CASA Systems Engineer Michael Zink to present paper, "NetRad: Distributed, Collaborative and Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere. Calibration and Initial Benchmarks," at the Distributed Computing in Sensor Systems (DCOSS) Conference in Marina del Rey, CA.
• June 5, 2005 - CASA Systems Engineer Michael Zink gives presentation, "Meteorological Command and Control: An End-to-End Architecture for a Hazardous Weather Detection Sensor Network," at End-to-End, Sense-and-Respond Systems, Applications, and Services Workshop in Seattle, WA.
• CASA researcher Ming Xue (OU) has developed the highest-resolution tornado simulation to date, providing critical data on how tornadoes form. Read the article or view the Supercell Thunderstorm Simulation. (This is a very large file and will take several minutes to open.)
• February 21, 2005 - CASA and Raytheon celebrate National Engineers week and Black History month with a presentation by Dave McLaughlin, CASA Executive Director.
• January 9-13, 2005 - CASA Presents Research at the American Meteorological Society 85th Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA.

2004

• October 25, 2004 - CASA sponsors STEM Summit on "Fueling the Pipeline for the Massachusetts Innovation Economy".
• October 21, 2004 - Brenda Philips, CASA's Director of Industry, Government, and End-User Partnerships, to Give Presentation, "Integrating Users into System Design: CASA, the Center for Collaborative Adaptive Sensing of the Atmosphere", at the National Weather Association's Annual Meeting in Portland, Oregon.
• September 27, 2004 - President Bush nominates CASA deputy director Kelvin Droegemeier to serve on National Science Board.
• September 20, 2004 - Dave McLaughlin to Give Banquet Address, "Distributed Collaborative Adaptive Sensing for Hazardous Weather Detection, Tracking, and Predicting", at RAWCON: IEEE Radio & Wireless Conference in Atlanta, GA
• August 1, 2004 - The Sunday Republican: UMass Finds Partners to Join Research
• June 28, 2004 - Eagle Tribune: Raytheon Looking to Hire 1,000 Statewide. CASA Education Co-Director, Kathy Rubin, is quoted in this article about the engineering workforce in the United States.
• March 30, 2004 - USA Today: CASA Deputy Director Kelvin Droegemeier was featured in the NOVA documentary "Hunt for the Super Twister."
• February 2004 - Engineering Trends: The New Engineer? Dean Joseph Goldstein's (UMass) recent editorial supports CASA's educational mission.
• February 18, 2004 - American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics (AIAA) Honors CASA PI Dave McLaughlin. Best Western TLC Hotel, Waltham, Mass.
• February 13, 2004 - Colorado State Univ. and UPRM create new joint PhD program.
• February 2-4, 2004 - V. Chandrasekar (Chandra) to Speak at 6th International Symposium on Hydrological Applications of Weather Radar in Melbourne, Australia. Presentation: Recent Advances on Polarimetric Radar for Hydrological Applications.
• January 22, 2004 - Dave McLaughlin to Speak at MIT AIAA Meeting
• January 10-15, 2004 - V. Chandrasekar (Chandra) & Jean Vieux to present at American Meteorological Society's 84th Annual Meeting

2003

• October 2003 - CASA Partners Launch Center