Lamont Weekly Report, May 30, 2014

       

    Although the week had fewer workdays than normal, there was no shortage of good news regarding recognition of the accomplishments of several of our colleagues.

 

    Adam Sobel learned this week that he is to receive the 2014 Atmospheric Sciences Ascent Award by the American Geophysical Union’s Atmospheric Sciences Section. Established in 2012, the award recognizes “exceptional mid-career scientists in the fields of the atmospheric and climate sciences” who have demonstrated “excellence in research and leadership in his or her field.” Adam will be given the award, which includes a certificate and a $1000 prize, at the Section Banquet during the AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco in December.

 

    Two of our graduate students, Julius Busecke and Nandini Ramesh, received the welcome news this week that they will receive NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowships. Julius was awarded a fellowship for his proposal entitled “Oceanic freshwater flux within the upper limb of the shallow overturning cell.” Nandini’s successful proposal was entitled “Mechanisms of change in global ocean heat uptake.”

 

    Please join me in congratulating our three colleagues for these honors!

 

    The campus this week welcomed a new cadre of Lamont summer interns, and their arrival was celebrated with a party on the Geosciences lawn yesterday afternoon. The 22 interns hail from 10 colleges and universities plus Columbia University and Barnard College. The interns and their institutions and mentors are as follows:

 

 

 

    Please find an opportunity to introduce yourself to as many of our summer visitors as possible.

 

    I hope that you also check the Lamont Blog (http://lamontlog.tumblr.com/) from time to time to keep up with campus news. Two of this week’s postings look fondly backwards – a colorized image of two scientists examining a newly acquired sediment core on the R/V Vema in the 1950s, and a view of Lamont’s rose garden with a link to a brief campus history. There’s a story on the polar science exhibit that will be hosted by Lamont and several partner organizations at the World Science Festival’s Ultimate Science Street Fair this Sunday in Washington Square Park. And there’s a story on a Pliomax expedition to Patagonia to map the position of sea level during the mid-Pliocene warm period, complete with an Alessio Rovere video of the experience (http://lamontlog.tumblr.com/post/87200569687/new-video-how-high-will-sea-levels-rise).

 

    On Monday and Tuesday next week, Lamont will host a mini-conference on atmospheric and oceanographic connections between the tropics and the polar regions. The meeting’s conveners include Xiaojun Yuan, Mark Cane, and Mike Kaplan, and the schedule includes talks by participants from the University of California, Berkeley; Colorado State University; MIT; New York University; Ohio University; Ohio State University; the University of Washington; the University of Wisconsin, Madison; and Universidad de Chile. Lamont scientists participating in the mini-conference, to be held in the Monell Auditorium, include speakers Bob Anderson, Ed Cook, Darren McKee, and Lorenzo Polvani, as well as poster presenters Tiffany Shaw and Karen Smith.

 

    Also on Monday, the campus will welcome a visit by the Earth Institute’s Management Advisory Board. Board members will be given a brief campus tour by Art Lerner-Lam, Pete Sobel, and Stacey Vassallo. The tour will be followed by a discussion session in the Kennedy Board Room in Comer at which Board members will hear brief overviews of the work at the Observatory, IRI, CIESIN, and the Agriculture and Food Security Center from the unit directors. One of the goals of the visit is to increase communication between EI’s Board and the Lamont Advisory Board.

 

    Until then, whether you’re welcoming a summer intern into your laboratory or rooting for a New York professional team that is still playing a winter sport at the end of May, may you enjoy the end to the four-day week.