National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Atanas Trayanov - The GMAO is proud to recognize your indispensable contributions to the development of GEOS for over two decades. You were the primary developer of the MAPL infrastructure layer that was central to adapting GEOS into the componentized Earth system. With the generosity of your time and expertise, you continue to be the go-to person for resolving MAPL/GEOS issues and for formulating solutions to new system requirements. In summary, the GEOS infrastructure is what it is due in large part to your design and implementation efforts. This has allowed GEOS to be used in the development of GMAO products that are used worldwide and allowed GEOS to become the backbone of NASA’s observation-driven modeling.

Natalie Thomas - The GMAO is proud to recognize your dedication to the management and organization of our National Climate Assessment (NCA) group meetings and your contributions to group analysis and publications. Your work in facilitating the NCA group’s efforts has been a key element in its successful collaborative analysis, research, and activities. You organized the calendar and agenda for biweekly group meetings. Additionally, you performed analysis outside of your own work to contribute to others’ publications and research efforts, always providing deep background research and insightful analysis, and always enabling the NCA group’s collaborative atmosphere.

Eun-Gyeong Yang - The GMAO is proud to recognize you as an integral new member and especially acknowledges your contributions to GMAO’s Planetary Boundary Layer (PBL) data assimilation project of the NASA Decadal Survey Incubation Program. Within two years of joining GMAO, you have successfully ingested various PBL height data from observing systems into the GEOS system. You have also worked closely with model experts and the PBL height data developers to enhance PBL height data quality.

Meng Zhou - The GMAO is proud to recognize you as an integral new member. Your scientific contributions to the development of the MonteCarlo Bi-phasic Fire Property (McBEF) Algorithm and continued enhancement of the Fire Light Detection Algorithm (FILDA) have been outstanding. McBEF and the FILDA datasets it builds upon will enable the development of the next generation biomass burning emission algorithms that are the foundation of GMAO atmospheric composition modeling and data assimilation systems.

Akira Sewnath - The GMAO is proud to recognize your mentorship efforts for interns who have benefited significantly from their interactions with you. Each has praised for your tremendous support including your constructive feedback and help in navigating complex situations, which is essential for career development and growth.

Anton Darmenov - The GMAO is proud to recognize your mentorship of intern Lyubomir (Lyubo) Trayanov. You expended tremendous effort to ensure Lyubo achieved all his internship objectives. Moreover, according to Lyubo, you were incredibly helpful in offering insights into big picture topics that were outside the scope of the project like overall work ethic and effectively communicating with peers.

Kaushal Patel - The GMAO is proud to recognize your mentorship of intern Jeffery Wei. The internship was Jeffery’s first time in a professional work environment, yet you helped him adjust through your invaluable support. You patiently explained complex concepts and provided advice and technical expertise that allowed Jeffery to succeed. You also fostered Jeffery’s confidence and critical thinking skills, making sure he had the tools to solve problems independently.

MERRA-21C, Team Leader: Amal El Akkraoui - The GMAO is proud to recognize your exceptional leadership in developing GMAO’s latest reanalysis, MERRA-21C. You led the new reanalysis team since the beginning and have been involved in and coordinated all aspects of the development from the assembling of the observing system to modeling, testing, evaluation, and finally production. Your deep and ever-evolving understanding of the science involved and methodology of data assimilation as well as your strong leadership skills, sharp focus and attention to detail have made the MERRA-21C project a success, while simultaneously leading the development of GEOS-IT.

MERRA-21C, Team Members: Rob Lucchesi, Mohar Chattopadhyay, Meta Seinkiewicz, Kris Wargan, Allie Collow, Christine Bloecker, Larry Coy, Mark Solomon, Scott Rabenhorst, Nathan Arnold, Yanqiu Zhu, Mike Bosilovich, Rolf Reichle, Gary Partyka, Gary Partyka, Austin Conaty, and Meredith Nichols - The GMAO is proud to recognize your outstanding work toward the development of GMAO’s latest reanalysis, MERRA-21C. Your contributions helped with assembling the observing system, then modeling, testing, evaluation, and finally production. Your understanding of the science involved, and methodology of data assimilation helped make the MERRA-21C project a success.

GEOS-CF, Team Leader: Emma Knowland - The GMAO is proud to recognize your exceptional leadership and scientific contributions to GMAO atmospheric composition projects as lead scientist for GMAO’s GEOS-Composition Forecast (GEOS-CF) system. Your efforts have been critical in the success of GEOS-CF as a widely used tool for atmospheric chemistry research and applications. You have been instrumental in coordinating the upcoming release of the new version of GEOS-CF and defining the vision for atmospheric composition modeling at the GMAO. You promoted the development of new technologies to enhance the accessibility and interoperability of GMAO products, including APIs and Google Earth Engine catalogs to facilitate user interaction with GEOS-CF, in alignment with NASA’s Transform to Open Science initiative.

GEOS-CF, Team Members: Cristoph Keller, Pamela Wales, Viral Shah, Carl Malings, Callum Wayman, Joe Ardizzone, Megan Damon, and Michael Long - The GMAO is proud to recognize your outstanding work toward the success of GMAO’s GEOS-Composition Forecast (GEOS-CF) system. Your efforts have been critical in making GEOS-CF a widely used tool for atmospheric chemistry research and applications. Your contributions have been instrumental in coordinating the upcoming release of the new version of GEOS-CF and defining the vision for atmospheric composition modeling at the GMAO. You promoted the development of new technologies to enhance the accessibility and interoperability of GMAO products, including APIs and Google Earth Engine catalogs to facilitate user interaction with GEOS-CF, in alignment with NASA’s Transform to Open Science initiative.

Emma Knowland - The GMAO is proud to recognize your exceptional leadership and scientific contributions to GMAO atmospheric composition projects. You have worked as a lead scientist for GMAO’s GEOS-Composition Forecast (GEOS-CF) system since its inception, and your efforts have been critical in the success of GEOS-CF as a widely used tool for atmospheric chemistry research and applications. Further, your work with the SAGE III/ISS Instrument Team, leadership of a NASA Applied Sciences project in Health and Air Quality, and membership on the WMO Global Air Quality Forecast and Information System (GAFIS) Steering Committee are all critical to ensuring the GMAO’s leading role in NASA’s Earth Science to Action initiatives.

Scott Rabenhorst - The GMAO is proud to recognize your dedicated support of the GEOS 2024 NOAA Hazardous Weather Testbed (HWT) Spring Forecast Experiment (SFE) c2160 2km stretched grid contribution. Your support of this project has continued following the conclusion of the SFE with the processing of HRRR and RRFS regional forecast data, global satellite observations and United States radar data.

Doruk Ardag - The GMAO is proud to recognize your outstanding contributions to the development of GMAO’s JEDI-based marine data assimilation and Swell workflow ecosystem. Your technical achievements, professionalism and unselfish attitude, especially during a time of significant staff turn-over and uncertainty, have provided a great service to GMAO. Our JEDI transition effort would be far less advanced if not for your contributions.

Callum Wayman, Sandra Roberts, and Joe Ardizzone - The GMAO is proud to recognize your exceptional and tireless efforts to support NASA field campaigns (FCs). Through 2024, you supported ten FCs including seven new ones. The FCs, especially the new ones required brand new FLUID pages and customized plots. You accomplished these requests often on compressed schedule working long hours. You received glowing remarks from leading FC scientists. For example, Rei Ueyama from PACE-PAX stated, “I've worked with the FLUID team in many past missions but continue to be impressed and grateful for your support.”