International Research Opportunities

CASA graduate students and researchers have actively sought opportunities to engage in international research opportunities. This year three International Research and Education in Engineering awards supported collaborative research between CASA researchers and their international partners. Dr. Yanting Wang from Colorado State University made two trips to the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (NIED) in Japan to exchange views on system architecture and applications with NIED colleagues. Ms. Victoria Manfredi, a Computer Science Ph.D. student at UMass, spent 5 months at The Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPEL) in Lausanne, Switzerland exploring several aspects of networked sensing systems. Mr. Jorge Trabal, an Electrical and Computer Engineering Ph.D. student at UMass, spent 4 months at the J.S. Marshall Radar Observatory (MRO) at McGill University working on detection, quantitative precipitation estimation,  and evaluation issues. Additionally, CASA co-sponsored (along with NIED in Japan and the National Science Foundation) the International Symposium on X-band Radar Networks in Tskuba, Japan.  Attended by almost 200 people, the goal of conference was to share research results on the benefits of deploying X-band radars for quantitative precipitation estimation and for sensing severe storms. CASA’s adaptive X-Band radar concepts, innovative signal processing algorithms, and user-focused design and operation were featured in the conference along with discussions by NSF of the importance of integrating users and technology. CASA is developing concepts for a collaboration with NIED, who is already an associate partner in CASA, as a result of this conference.