The Columbia 25-year Club has two new members from the Lamont Campus, Marty Fleisher and Benno Blumenthal. Benno has been a mainstay in the IRI, and has implemented a widely used, sophisticated data management system and digital library. Marty has been front and center in the geochem labs, working with Bob Anderson. Congratulations to both!...
Here we are in June, with the spring semester behind and the solstice ahead. The interns and other summer guests have arrived, and are being introduced gently, no doubt, to shuttle bus etiquette. Many of our colleagues are preparing for their summer field seasons and will be leaving steamy NY for perhaps even more tropical environs. Nevertheless, it never ceases to amaze how energized and packed the Lamont Campus becomes during the summer. Notwithstanding long lines in the cafeteria, it's a great time of year...
Tomorrow, May 19th, 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM, the Lamont - Bright Horizons Child Development Center will be celebrating ten years of service to our community. The center opened in 2000 after an internal study by the Lamont Executive Committee. It was operated by the YMCA for about a year, and has been operated by Bright Horizons since January 2002. Bright Horizons has been lauded as one of Fortune magazine's "100 Best Companies to Work For" and our center has achieved the prestigious accreditation of the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)...
There's more good news on the awards front this week. Pedro Sanchez was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Kaori Tsukui received an Outstanding Student Paper Award for her presentation at the 2011 AGU Fall Meeting. This is Kaori's second award! Also receiving an Outstanding Student Paper Award was Tiffany Rivera, who works with our
Geoinformatics for Geochemistry group...
Excom this morning: discussion of Columbia's new accounting and reporting system led by Anne Sullivan, Executive VP for Finance (lots of work, lots of staff training, will make things better, please be patient); final iterations on our By-Laws (for discussion in May and voting in June); discussion of our Post-Doc mentoring Plan and its effectiveness in preparing post-docs for career choices (Kuheli will draft some modifications for discussion); various compliance issues (more patience required, some input from Columbia needed). We missed the Enterprise flyover...
News came this week that Dennis Kent has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Congratulations, Dennis!
Our last public lecture of the 2012 season will be given on Sunday (Earth Day) by Peter Kelemen. Peter's talk is appropriately titled, "Peak Earth: Population, Climate and Energy in the 21st Century." Let me take this opportunity to thank each of this year's speakers - Heather Savage, Pratigya Polissar, Greg Mountain, Donna Shillington, and Peter - for an engaging and well-targeted series of presentations. And special thanks to our Development/Events team - Barb Charbonnet, Erika Freimuth, Stacey Vassallo, and Ronnie Anderson - for making it happen...
Columbia's Morningside Heights campus is one of the great urban spaces, and the first few weeks of spring illustrate the genius of McKim, Mead and White to full effect (if you forget about the 120th street canyon). The Lamont campus, as well, is glorious in the spring; the trees are about to pop, Buildings and Grounds is getting some new plants in the ground, our resident wildlife is doing what wildlife will do at this time of year, and our buildings... well, let's talk about space...
The letter from President Bollinger and Provost Coatsworth announcing the appointment of Sean Solomon as Lamont's next Director signals a new era at the Observatory. We have been fortunate throughout our 63-year history to be led by a succession of outstanding and canonical directors. Under Mike Purdy's directorship, the Observatory achieved new heights of accomplishment and stability, from the successful acquisition of a new ship, to the construction of a world-class
geochemistry building, to the hiring of peerless scientists, to, finally, the establishment of the Lamont Research Professors. We are in the perfect position for new achievements with Sean as our colleague and our Director. The years to come will be exciting, challenging, and fun...
Jim Gaherty, Bruce Shaw and Felix Waldhauser have each been promoted to Lamont Full Research Professor, effective March 1, 2012. Donna Shillington and Jason Smerdon have been appointed to the Earth Institute faculty --- Congratulations to all.
Howie Matza has organized a webinar presentation Monday, April 2, at 1 PM in the Comer 1st floor seminar room on the subject of lab safety. The webinar is open to all, but is especially important to anyone working in a lab or responsible for the operation of a lab. I've previewed the webinar and recommend your participation. The safety of our staff and
students is paramount, and taking the time to review safety procedures is a fundamental responsibility for all concerned...
Yes, I forgot to write a weekly report last Friday, so I'll have to cover a couple of weeks in this one.
We are well into our Spring Lecture series, starting with the tag-team performance of Heather Savage and Pratigya Polissar last Sunday, and continuing with Greg Mountain this coming weekend. We usually fill Monell Auditorium with an engaged audience - the questions are great - and this year is off to the same start. The Development Office (Barb,
Stacey and Erika) continues to do an impressive job organizing and publicizing the lectures, and Phil Fitzpatrick mans the A/V booth. The final two lectures will be on Tax Day, April 15 (Donna Shillington) and Earth Day, April 22 (Peter Kelemen). There's more information in the "Spotlight" section of our website...
The week opened with a wonderful luncheon for Ken Hunkins, organized by Margie Turrin and Barb Charbonnet, with new friends, old friends and old new friends attending. We were able to present Ken with the original map - now mounted and preserved - showing the tracks of all of the drifting ice stations that revolutionized exploration of the Arctic, beginning with Ice Station Alpha during the International Geophysical Year.
Just a brief report today: running out of time.
Steve Zebiak stepped down this week as Director General of the IRI, after a long and successful tenure at the helm. Steve led the IRI toward its current unique position as one of the most sophisticated sources of actionable, science-based advice to international development organizations, national institutions and agencies, and foreign governments. His contributions are immense, and both the EI and Lamont owe him a great deal. He will be staying on at the IRI and will continue to develop programs in climate services...
We had an executive committee marathon this morning, trying to catch up on several topics.
I’ve asked Mahdad Parsi, Naomi Naik and Benno Blumenthal to participate in several working groups underneath the “Shared Research Computing Policy Advisory Committee” being run out of Mike Purdy’s EVPR office. These working groups will focus on assessing existing computational resources, enumerating needs for computational power and storage, evaluating cloud architecture and other topics...
Some personnel news:
Nichole Anest has been promoted to curator of Lamont's Core Repository. Under the leadership of Mo Raymo, we are planning to start a major renovation to build and support next-generation analytical facilities. As everyone knows, the cores are a never-ending source of new observations and new science, and Nichole's curation will be a crucial bridge to future utilization of the repository. Nichole takes over from Rusty Lotti, who retired last year, and who was instrumental
in giving us a great base for future growth...
A nice surprise this morning: NOAA has announced that:
"Marcus G. Langseth has been selected for a 2011 Voluntary Weather Observing Ship (VOS) Award and Plaque with an outstanding total of 3,749 valuable manual and automated marine observations! In addition, your ship staff also helped automate observation programs on Roger Revelle and Melville. You will receive your special award later this year. Once
you have the award, we hope to acquire a digital photo for the Mariner's Weather Log to honor your achievement."...
We got into serious campus budget talks this week. On Monday the associate directors, the division DAs, and senior admin folks gathered in one room to scope out the remainder of this fiscal year and talk about next year's hiring and space plans. We discussed opportunities and constraints as a group, which will give us a more balanced way of
managing new investments next year. For example, as part of the budget workup, we will be phasing in an approach to commodity computer purchases and training and support opportunities for senior technical staff. As I mentioned last week, the Executive Committee and OMG will be heavily involved in these discussions...
One of our collective strategies going forward is to broaden our base of funding from traditional sources by developing relationships with other agencies and institutions. Working in our favor is the growing realization in some of these agencies that university-based fundamental research is necessary in its own right and has much to contribute to
their missions and agendas. For example, USAID - an agency with which we have had some past interactions - is in the process of developing an external grants program for universities, meant to support basic research in support of development objectives....
This being the first full week after the holiday break, most of my time was spent in meetings and catching up. Much of the next few weeks will be spent working with Edie and the associate directors preparing the Observatory budget for our next fiscal year. At the same time, we are paying close attention to the federal government's plans for future science agency budgets. Some Lamont and IRI scientists will be visiting Capitol Hill at the end of the month to participate in "Climate
Science Day," organized by the AAAS, AGU, AMS (and other professional organizations), to make the case for the importance of university-based basic research. It's a message that cannot be repeated too frequently...
Happy New Year and welcome back.
As you know, we had another water main break just before New Year's holiday. Dick Greco and his crew worked overtime to get it repaired before the long weekend, with just some roadwork to complete as soon as temperatures allow. Thanks to everyone for accommodating the work and the road closures...