Tom Hollingshead joined the Unidata Program Center as a System Administrator on July 30, 2015. He's built up a wide-ranging set of technical skills over more than 20 years in the field, ranging from systems administration of Linux and Windows servers to information security, network administration, and virtualization technologies. While he's new to Unidata, Tom is well acquainted with UCAR's Community Programs (UCP) — he spent nearly two years working as a systems administrator for the GLOBE program in 2012-2013.

It hasn't been just a succession of office buildings, though. “My first technical skills were acquired in the U.S. Navy where I worked on a short range, self-defense missile system on an aircraft carrier,” says Tom. He also spent a couple of years San Jose, Costa Rica, working for Intel.

The Unidata Program Center's summer student intern Josh Clark has come to the end of his summer appointment. After a summer of widely varying projects, Josh gave an overview of his accomplishments to the UPC staff on July 31, 2015.

Josh graduated from the University of Northern Colorado in the spring of 2015 with a B.S. in Meteorology. After spending the summer at the Unidata Program Center, he is headed to the graduate program at San Jose State's Fire Weather Research Lab.

Unidata's web site has a new look. If you're reading this on the web site, you've undoubtedly figured that out. If you're reading News@Unidata via an RSS feed or some other aggregator, however, it's possible you haven't seen the site's redesign. Check it out.

Unidata's web site was last redesigned in 2011. In recent months, all of the individual organizations that make up the University Corporation for Atmosphetic Research (UCAR) have been working to adopt a common web design theme; the Unidata site's new visual style is our interpretation of the common look and feel. You'll find other interpretations at the sites for NCAR, different programs within the UCAR Community Programs (UCP), (like COMET and GLOBE and the Visiting Scientist Programs (VSP) to name just a few), and of course at UCAR's top-level web site.

The Unidata Program Center is happy to be hosting summer intern Josh Clark. Josh graduated from the University of Northern Colorado (UNC) in the spring of 2015 with a B.S. in Meteorology, and is headed to the graduate program at San Jose State's Fire Weather Research Lab this fall.

The Unidata Summer Internships offer undergraduate and graduate students an opportunity to work with Unidata software engineers and scientists on projects drawn from a wide variety of areas in the atmospheric and computational sciences.

Inken Purvis

The Unidata Program Center is pleased to welcome Inken Purvis to our staff. Inken joined us as an Administrative Assistant on March 2, 2015; she'll be the Program Center's new Travel Coordinator, among other administrative duties.

Prior to coming to the UPC, Inken has worked in a variety of marketing and administrative roles in the financial services, publishing, and (most recently) pharmaceutical sectors. Her experience doing meeting support, event planning, and travel arrangement fills an obvious need here at the Program Center, but that's just a beginning.

Spend the summer in beautiful Boulder, Colorado

Do you use Unidata software packages? Do you love to write code? The Unidata Summer Internship program is looking for you!

The Unidata Summer Internship offers undergraduate and graduate students an opportunity to work with Unidata software engineers and scientists on projects drawn from a wide variety of areas in the atmospheric and computational sciences. Unidata's mission is to support the Earth Science research and education community with data and tools for data access, analysis, and visualization. As a Unidata intern, you'll pursue the goal of adding innovative enhancements to data access, analysis, and visualization tools developed within Unidata.

Marty Bright

Marty Bright joined the Unidata Program Center as a System Administrator on July 28, 2014. Along with his cheerful disposition, he brings some 25 years' experience in the design, implementation, and support of complex information systems. Marty had actually been working at the UPC on a contract basis since April 2014, and has now consented to join the staff as a full-time employee.

Prior to coming to the UPC, Marty helped support the Adams 12 school district in Colorado, where he was responsible for troubleshooting hardware and software issues for a network of several thousand personal computers. Along the way he developed expertise in dealing with numerous operating sytems, server hardware, virtualization technologies, and networking gear.

Unidata summer 2014 interns Shawn Cheeks and Florita Rodriguez.

The Unidata Program Center is happy to be hosting two student interns this summer: Florita Rodriguez from Texas A&M Univeristy in College Station, TX, and Shawn Cheeks from Marshall University in Huntington, WV.

The Unidata Summer Internships offer undergraduate and graduate students an opportunity to work with Unidata software engineers and scientists on projects drawn from a wide variety of areas in the atmospheric and computational sciences.

Josh Young

Josh Young joined the Unidata Program Center as the Community Services Manager on March 10, 2014. He comes to Unidata from the Consortium for Ocean Leadership in Washington, D.C. where he served as the Program Manager for the Interagency Ocean Observation Committee Support Office (IOOC SO). At the IOOC SO, he supported member agencies in coordinating federal ocean observing and engaging the broader science community.

Josh first encountered Unidata products at the IOOC SO, where one of his duties was supporting the Data Management and Communications Steering Team. From the beginning, it was obvious that the Steering Team thought highly of Unidata, but all of the technical terms that members used were very unfamiliar and confusing. After several years, Josh became thoroughly accustomed to being confused during data-management conversations.

Unidata's AMS booth

This year's annual American Meteorological Society meeting in Atlanta, Georgia hosted nearly 3500 attendees, who fortuitously missed the serious winter storms that occurred shortly before and after the conference. We were happy to see many of the Unidata community members participating in the meeting at our booth in the exhibit hall, and to meet so many prospective community members at the AMS Student Conference.

With so much going on at the conference, we can't cover everything here. Instead, we present some highlights as recalled by UPC staff members who attended.