During the Fall semester of 2018, Notre Dame of Maryland University (NDMU) piloted a small seminar course in scientific computing intended for junior and senior undergraduates majoring in math, physics, engineering, or computer science. The goal was to develop and test a multi-disciplinary course, which would ultimately be added as an upper-level elective in these programs. Because NDMU is a small, primarily undergraduate, teaching university with limited computational resources, we reached out to Unidata to ask if we could test our new course using JupyterHub resources that are part of the Unidata Science Gateway. Having never offered this course before, we were uncertain the extent of the resources needed and the commitment needed to maintain and tweak those resources as the course progressed. Partnering with Unidata offered us a way to gain this expertise while getting access to the resources we needed for the class.

Unidata Users and Strategic Advisory Committees

Unidata is governed by its community. Our governing committees facilitate consensus-building for future directions of the Unidata Program and establish standards of involvement for the community. Direct involvement in the Program by the academic community helps Unidata stay on top of trends in education and research; for example, recent initiatives on Python and cloud-based computing have benefitted tremendously from committee advice and involvement.

The Unidata Program Center is seeking new people to serve on Unidata's Strategic Advisory and Users Committees. This is your chance to make a difference on behalf of the Unidata community. As Sepideh Yalda, the current Chair of the Unidata Strategic Advisory Committee notes, “Unidata has and continues to serve a critical role in providing data and services to the earth and related sciences community. The opportunity to serve as a member on Unidata governance committees provides you with the ability to contribute and help guide the future developments in data sharing and the associated services in support of research and education in atmospheric sciences.”

Some past student representatives

The Unidata Users Committee is seeking nominations for a Graduate Student representative to join the group of nine university faculty members currently serving on this committee. Nominees should be Graduate Students who use Unidata software, hold a strong interest in the Unidata program, and have an interest in learning how a community-based program like Unidata is governed. Nominations may be made by any community member, and self-nominations are acceptable. This position will be for a two-year term beginning with the fall 2019 Users Committee meeting.

The Unidata Program Center is pleased to welcome new members to the program's governing committees. Committee members serve three-year terms, meeting twice each year to provide feedback on the effectiveness of the Unidata Program and advise staff on issues facing the university community. Appointments reflect the range of large and small colleges and universities with undergraduate and graduate emphases where Unidata systems are in use.

The UPC staff looks forward to working with our new committee members!

A Python-focused Unidata Software Training Workshop took place August 30-31, 2018, at Jackson State University. The workshop was sponsored by the Department of Chemistry, Physics, and Atmospheric Sciences (CPAS), and organized by Drs. Remata S. Reddy and the author, in collaboration with Unidata Program Center Staff. Topics covered included the use of Unidata's MetPy and Siphon packages, focusing on atmospheric science applications such as: Upper air data analysis and the Skew-T, making maps with Cartopy, working with surface data analysis, model data, satellite data, time series analysis and more.