Lamont Weekly Report, March 3, 2017

     The week began with our annual Awards Recognition Ceremony, a celebration of the awards in research and education received by our colleagues during calendar 2016. The ceremony was held as part of a reception in the Monell Lower Lobby. The honorees included the following:

Ryan Abernathey

Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER), NSF, 2016

 

Sloan Research Fellowship, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, 2016

Alexandra Boghosian

Graduate Research Fellowship, National Science Foundation, 2016

Alejandra Borunda

Dissertation Fellowship, Ford Foundation, 2016

Steven Boswell

STEM Chateaubriand Fellow, French Government, 2016

Julius Busecke

Outstanding Student Paper Award, Ocean Sciences Section, AGU, 2016

CIESIN

New York of Science, Design I/O, CIESIN, Science Media Award, Interactive Category, Jackson Hole Wild and WGBH Boston, 2016

Olivia Clifton

First Place Oral Presentation, Third Conference on Atmospheric Biogeosciences, American Meteorological Society, 2016

Kassandra Costa

Goodfriend Award, Best Student Paper in Paoleoclimate, DEES, 2016

Zach Eilon

GeoPRISMS Student Prize, Poster Presentation, AGU 2016

Megan Freiberger

Graduate Research Fellowship, National Science Foundation, 2016

Elisabeth Gawthrop

Stabile Fellow, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, 2016

Laura Haynes

Sara Langer Book Prize for Contributions to Student Life, DEES, 2016

Bärbel Hönisch

Lenfest Distinguished Faculty Award, Columbia University, 2016

Helen Janiszewski

GeoPRISMS, Honorable Mention Oral Presentation, AGU, 2016

 

Outstanding Student Paper, Tectonophysics Section, AGU, 2016

Allison Jacobel

Goodfriend Award, Best Student Paper in Paoleoclimate, DEES, 2016

Xiaomeng Jin

Outstanding Student Paper, Atmospheric Sciences Section, AGU, 2016

Michael Kaplan

Fulbright Visiting Senior Scholar, 2016

Sean Kinney

Graduate Research Fellowship, National Science Foundation, 2016

Tierney Larson

Graduate Research Fellowship, National Science Foundation, 2016

Tianjia (Tina) Liu

Outstanding Student Paper, AGU 2016

Josh Maurer

Earth and Space Fellowship, NASA, 2016

Jerry McManus

Dansgaard Award, Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology Focus Group, AGU, 2016

Ángel Muñoz

Orden de la Zulianidad Award for “Outstanding Contributions to Society”, Venezuela, 2016

Francesco Muschitiello

Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award, European Geosciences Union, 2016

Megan Newcombe

GeoPRISMS Postdoctoral Fellowship, National Science Foundation, 2016

Robert Newton

Excellence in Mentoring Award, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, 2016

Kira Olsen

Graduate Research Fellowship, National Science Foundation, 2016

 

Outstanding Student Paper, Cryosphere Section, AGU 2016

Samuel Phelps

STEM Chateaubriand Fellow, French Government, 2016

Angelica Patterson

Campbell Award, Columbia University, 2016

Terry Plank

Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2016

Catherine Pomposi

Science for Society Award, DEES, 2016

Hannah Rabinowitz

Bruce Heezen Memorial Prize, DEES, 2016

Daniel Rasmussen

Outstanding Student Paper, Tectonophysics Section, AGU, 2016

 

GeoPRISMS Student Prize, Best Poster Presentation, AGU, 2016

Maureen Raymo

Member, National Academy of Sciences, 2016

Dennis-Didier Rousseau

Hans Oeschger Medal, European Geosciences Union, 2016

Heather Savage

Mineral and Rock Physics Early Career Award, Mineral and Rock Physics Focus Group, AGU, 2016

Peter Schlosser

Member, German National Academy of Sciences, 2016

Christine Sprunger

Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology, National Science Foundation, 2016

Maya Tolstoy

Birch Lecturer, Tectonophysics Section, AGU, 2016

Margie Turrin

Distinguished Service Award, Rockland County Municipal Planning Federation, 2016

Rebecca Trinh

Graduate Research Fellowship, National Science Foundation, 2016

Maayan Yehudai

Outstanding Student Paper Award, Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology section, AGU, 2016

 

     Late last week, Eos published an article coauthored by Brad Linsley on the Marine Annually Resolved Proxy Archive (MARPA), a community effort to archive and describe marine samples that record paleoclimate information (https://eos.org/project-updates/saving-our-marine-archives). The coral archive in the Lamont Core Repository is prominently featured in the article.

     On Tuesday, I met with Lamont’s Associate Directors and Division Administrators to hear summaries of the financial health of each division and early estimates of federal and private grant income for the coming fiscal year. Attending the meeting were Nina Aguilar, Bonnie Bonkowski, Roger Buck, Kathy Callahan, Rosanne D’Arrigo, Jean Economos, Julia Eiferman, Jim Gaherty, Dave Goldberg, Steve Goldstein, Sean Higgins, Art Lerner-Lam, Lori McCaleb, Edie Miller, Vicky Nazario, Linette Sandoval-Rzepka, Kim Schermerhorn, Moanna St. Clair, June Tallon, Mingfang Ting, and Sandra Tiwari. Given the extraordinary state of uncertainty over federal science agency budgets this year and next, Lamont’s 2018 budget will be one that fits the Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.”

     On Wednesday, Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics published a paper coauthored by Arlene Fiore on the distribution of surface ozone across the U.S. during the period 1980-2014. On the basis of both observations and coupled models of atmospheric chemistry and climate, Arlene and her collaborators found that increased emissions of nitrogen oxides from Asia have led to increases in surface ozone in the western U.S. that have outpaced the reductions effected by stricter emission controls in this country. Surface ozone levels in the eastern U.S. have generally declined over the study period, but they have spiked during heat waves. A story on the paper’s findings was posted Wednesday on Science Blog (https://scienceblog.com/492582/asian-pollution-heat-waves-worsen-u-s-smog/).

     Also on Wednesday, I flew to London for a retreat of Columbia University’s Trustees on Friday and a meeting of President Lee Bollinger’s Global Leadership Council on Monday. The primary agenda topic at both meetings will be a proposal to endorse and launch the Columbia World Projects concept.

     The Lamont Open House will once again be an annual event. Discussions with the development and events staff at the Observatory and the Earth Institute underscored the multiple advantages for outreach, education, and the engagement of sponsors of returning to an annual cadence. The next Lamont Open House will be on Saturday, 7 October 2017. Please hold the date and plan to participate!

     Today’s Earth Science Colloquium will be given by seismologist and marine geophysicist William Wilcock, a Professor in the School of Oceanography at the University of Washington (http://faculty.washington.edu/wilcock/). William will be speaking on “Cabled seafloor observatories and the 2015 eruption of Axial Seamount.” Unless you are cabled to your desk, I hope that you will be able to hear what he has to say.

 

                          Sean