Director's Weekly Reports

    Hello Friends,  Isn’t October great!?  I’d give it the best month award any year.  I received some good news from downtown yesterday.  The campus federal indirect cost return rate has been revised upward by 1.5%, which will put more money into our operating budget next fiscal year. The fact that this news made me so happy makes me worry I have a bad case of directoritis. 

    Hello Friends, What a spectacular week of fall weather! Wednesday afternoon on the Director's patio was a lovely setting to meet ao many of our new, and not so new, Postdoctoral Research Scientists. I was struck by the incredible diversity of subjects and homelands represented in this cohort - this is how you build a global network of colleagues. Thanks to the cafeteria for the delicious nibbles.

     Hello Friends, The week that the American Geophysical Union announces its annual prizes is always fun.  Who is there?  Any of my friends or colleagues?  Who are the early career stars we should invite to the colloquium?  And so on….  The Observatory is proud to have many honorees this year!  DEES Professor Ryan Abernathey is the recipient of the Charles S.

      Hello Friends,  The end of the summer is nigh.  And weirdly, I feel that little knot in my stomach that came with going-back-to-school as a child.  We’ve shared (remotely) such a profoundly bizarre last 18 months, filled with stress, anxiety, loss, a complete disruption of routine but, hopefully, some small moments of grace within it all.  But now we must all return to work/school.  I imagine there is a lot of anxiety out there right now and I hope we can all be a little gentle with each other as we try to navigate back to yet another new normal

     Hello Friends,  Our months of uncertainty continue.  Our gains in community safety are slowly being undermined by the delta variant.  Asymptomatic positive testing numbers are creeping up at CU after many months of declining numbers.  Monday will bring the deadline for vaccine compliance—the Lamont campus currently leads relative to the other four CU campuses, though we are still only at about 80% compliance.  People who have not yet uploaded proof that they are vaccinated, or in the process, will soon be contacted.  The university has made

     Hello Friends,  This will be a short and sweet summer missive.  First, it was so fun and inspiring to hear John Cook’s first Summer Stars lecture yesterday and learn about how one can inoculate oneself against fake news.  So cool to see the dozens of places across the nation, and indeed world, where his cartoons and gamification of cognitive science are being used in classrooms to combat mis-information about climate change.  If you missed the lecture, the recording will be available shortly.

     Hello Friends,  Wow, has the last year flown by!  After nearly fifty newsletters, untold Zoom meetings, and more than a few gray hairs, my greatest desire is to see us all back on campus in September.  As fun as it has been watching baby woodchucks cavorting outside my office window all day, all week, I would trade that for the hustle and bustle of colleagues in a New York minute.  So many changes and even more to announce this week.  We officially welcomed Dave Goldberg into his new role as Deputy Director and I am greatly appreciative of t

     Hello Friends,  A big shout-out to Lamont Research Professors Billy D’Andrea and Marco Tedesco who were elected to the University Senate this week!  The third seat was filled by Daniel Wolf Savin, a Senior Research Scientist in the Astrophysics Laboratory.  To have this level of representation and voice on the senate is a huge benefit to the Lamont campus, to the EI, and to the emerging Climate School.  Billy and Marco write “Thanks to everyone who turned out to vote us both into the University Senate.

     Hello Friends,  Lots of exciting research news piled up while I was away, so I will dive right in.  We can collectively celebrate two of our students finishing up their theses this week.  Daniel Bishop successfully defended his PhD on "Attributing the Causes of a Century of Hydroclimatic Change in the United States”.