OMSI Snow Exhibit Opening
February 2022: The Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, in collaboration with the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry in Portland, are pleased to announce the opening of the first ever museum exhibit on snow! The snow exhibit opening is February 1, 2022 at OMSI in Portland
Ning Sun Publishes A New Paper
January 2022: Congratulations to Ning Sun and co-authors on their new paper in the AGU Water Resources Research.
Cassie goes to Norway
January 2022
Steven Passes His General Exam
November 2021: Congratulations to our research group's newest Ph.D. Candidate, Steven Pestana on passing his General Examination this week. Excellent work Steven!!!
Susan's Paper is Published in AGUWRR
October 2021: Congratulations to Susan Dickerson-Lange on her new paper "Ranking Forest Effects on Snow Storage: A Decision Tool for Forest Management" published in AGUWRR.
Kehan Joins the Research Group
August 2021: Join us in welcoming Kehan Yang to our research group! Kehan completed her PhD at CU Boulder this summer with INSTAAR, and starts her PostDoc with us this fall at UW! She will study how to apply machine learning models to high-resolution snow cover mapping.
Justin Receives the Nece Endowed Fellowship
July 2021: Congrats to Justin Pflug on receiving the Nece Endowed Fellowship, established by the late UW professor Ron Nece & his wife. It's awarded annually to the top PhD graduates in hydrology & hydrodynamics for their academic performance, dissertation, and scholarship!
Steven Receives the UW College of Engineering Teaching Award
June 2021: Congratulations to group member Steven Pestana on receiving the UW College of Engineering Student Teaching Award!
Justin Accepts CIRES Fellowship
April 2021: Congratulations to Justin Pflug on accepting the CIRES Visiting Postdoctoral Fellowship in Boulder! His research will focus on analyzing snow spatial heterogeneity in the Rocky Mountains & how it influences wildlife habitats in both current & future climates.
Joe Graduates with a B.S. in Computer Engineering
June 2021: After graduating with a B.S. in Computer Engineering this spring, Joe Ammatelli will stay on as a grad student with the group! Joe plans to continue his current research on how video processing can be used to infer tree properties for his Master's Thesis. Congratulations Joe!
Giulia Receives IACS Early Scientist Award
March 2021: IACS announces Giulia as one of the 2021 recipients of their Early Career Scientist Award. Congratulations Giulia!
Justin Wins First Place Oral Presentation
January 2021: Justin Pflug’s presentation at the 2021 AMS Annual meeting was selected as the 1st place oral presentation among student entries in the hydrology section! Congratulations Justin!
Calista Earns Mary Gates Undergraduate Research Scholarship
January 2021: Congratulations to group member Calista Moore on receiving a Mary Gates Undergraduate Research Scholarship for her project on "Satellite and Airborne Thermal Infrared Imagery of Snow". We look forward to seeing where you take this project in 2021, Congrats!!
Annie Earns Her Masters
December 2020: Annie successfully defended her M.S. Thesis (Investigating Repeatable Snow Distributions and Meteorological Conditions over Four Years in Finse, Norway) based on research she completed while at the University of Oslo this past year through the Valle Program. Congrats Annie!
Giulia Earns Her PhD
September 2020: Congratulations to Giulia on a successful defense of her PhD thesis last week!
Cassie Earns Her Masters
August 2020: Cassie successfully defended her masters thesis! Congratulations to Cassie. She will be pursuing a PhD studying seasonal snow processes that impact wildlife populations.
Victoria Earns Her Masters
August 2020: Congratulations to Victoria for earning her masters! Read more about her masters work below. Where can we use satellite sensors for observing snow? Where do they best "work"? For their Master's Thesis, Victoria Ly created a tool and set of maps to identify where in the world Passive Microwave (PM) sensors can retrieve Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) measurements. Using Google Earth Engine, the user can adjust a set of limitations that hinder PM accuracy (e.g. wet snow, deep snow, dense forest cover, and the combination of those factors). The goal is for a researcher or water manager to be able to look up their region of interest or watershed, and see if they can use PM-derived snow data at their locality. The tool and maps will be available online soon. Stay tuned!
Steven Earns NASA FINNEST Fellowship
August 2020: Steven earned the NASA FINNEST Fellowship award! His research project is described below. Congratulations! Uncertainty in the longwave (infrared) radiation balance at the snow surface limits our ability to model the timing and rate of snowmelt of seasonal mountain snow. Infrared remote sensing by satellites such as the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) could provide estimates of snow-surface temperature (upward longwave) and cloud cover (a source of downward longwave) observations at sub-hourly intervals to decrease these uncertainties and evaluate model performance. This work will investigate how GOES Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) observations can be used to: observe surface temperatures of seasonal snow in the mountains, detect periods of cloud cover and enhanced downward longwave radiation, and drive statistical downscaling ("sensor fusion") models to represent longwave energy fluxes at finer spatial resolutions.
Joe's Mary Gates Presentation
Check out Joe's talk on Youtube!
Snow School 2020
January 2020: Cassie Lumbrazo helped out at the CUAHSI Snow Measurement Field School this year in Bretton Woods, NH. This 4-day field school took place in the frigid White Mountains of New Hampshire where students gained fundamental training in snow measurement collection and analysis. From excavating snow pits to characterizing stratigraphy, many of the students will take what they learned at this field course and apply it during the 2020 NASA SnowEx field campaign this month!
Cassie Earns OSPA Award at AGU
January 2020: Congratulations to Cassie Lumbrazo, who received an Outstanding Student Presentation Award (OSPA) for her oral presentation at the AGU Fall Meeting 2019! She presented in the Modeling of the Cryosphere: Seasonal Snow I Session on "Evaluating snow interception parameterizations with time-lapse photography". This was her first time attending AGU and the first podium presentation of her graduate studies!