2016 GMAO Peer Award Winners
February 27, 2017
We extend our congratulations to the winners of the 2016 GMAO Peer Awards.
These selections were made by a small committee of GMAO members, including civil servants, research institute staff, and support contract staff. Nominations were solicited from the entire GMAO. Senior management were excluded from being nominated and did not participate in the selection process.
The winners are listed in different categories of "Scientific, Technical or Outreach Support," "Scientific Achievement," "Administrative of Business Support," "Outstanding Contributions by a New GMAO Member" (who has been in GMAO for less than two years), and "Long-Term Achievement".
Scientific, Technical, or Outreach Support
Gary Partyka
Category: Science Support
Citation: For your truly exceptional performance in monitoring the various GEOS systems and presenting compelling and well-researched findings at weekly monitoring meetings.
Sterling Spangler
Category: Outreach Support
Citation: For your outstanding work creating a consistent GMAO brand that has already been used to great effect at AGU and AMS. Your work has greatly enhanced the GMAO’s ability to reach the larger scientific community and the public.
Software Infrastructure Team; Ben Auer, Weiyuan Jiang, Hamid Oloso, Matt Thompson, and Atanas Trayanov
Category: Technical Support
Citation: For consistently and routinely going above and beyond expectations in software development and maintenance. Your incredible efforts increase the effectiveness of science development across the GMAO.
Scientific Achievement
Larry Coy
Citation: For your impressive monitoring and diagnosis of the cause of the unusual quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) reversal and the resulting scientific papers that you published in collaboration with other NASA researchers.
Clara Orbe
Citation: In recognition of your ongoing and recent contributions to the diagnosis and understanding of constituent transport in the GMAO's systems, that have strong implications for our studies of atmospheric chemistry and the carbon cycle.
Long-Term Achievement
Gi-Kong Kim
Category: Long-Term Achievement
Citation: For your long-term technical, computational, and organizational contributions to the GMAO and to its predecessor organization, the DAO. Your oversight of computer resources, management of our operational staff, and coordination with outside customers have been critical to all of the GMAO’s many successes over the last two and a half decades.
Eric Nielsen
Category: Long-Term Achievement
Citation: For sustained scientific and technical excellence resulting in key contributions that have greatly enhanced the capabilities of the GEOS model to accurately represent and predict chemical processes in the atmosphere. Your work has been fundamental in establishing the GEOS CCM as a world-leading model and in helping GMAO make significant advances in Earth System Modeling.
Administrative or Business Support
Shirley Hawkins and Heather Weir
Category: Administrative Support
Citation: For doing such a tremendous job stepping up to the challenge during the interregnum in the main office after Sarah left and before Lelia came onboard.
Nicole Raphael and Susan Raphael
Category: Business Support
Citation: For providing outstanding financial and budgeting support to Code 610.1 and to the larger resources community in code 600 throughout this past year. Your close teamwork and “can do” attitude were critical to the success of business operations in the GMAO.
Outstanding Contribution by a New GMAO Member
Allison Collow
Category: Outstanding ScientificContribution by a New GMAO Member
Citation: For your insightful use of MERRA-2 data to develop an analysis of the influences of the large-scale weather on extreme precipitation events in the North East United States.
Abhishek Chatterjee
Category: Outstanding Scientific Contribution by a New GMAO Member
Citation: For helping advance the status of GMAO's carbon modeling efforts by becoming a PI on two NASA proposals and for organizing sessions at AGU, AMS and the North American Carbon Program (NACP) meeting.
Fanwei Zeng
Category: Outstanding Technical Contribution by a New GMAO Member
Citation: For providing exceptional modeling support for continued land model development and for quickly mastering the new vegetation phenology and carbon model slated for use in future GMAO systems.
Lelia Marbury
Category: Outstanding Administrative Contribution by a New GMAO Member
Citation: For quickly mastering the job of running office operations and for providing truly superior assistance to the GMAO scientific and technical staff.
