2012 DeSouza Award

David Knight, University at Albany — SUNY

The Russell L. DeSouza Award honors “individuals whose energy, expertise, and active involvement enable the Unidata Program to better serve the geosciences.”

David's contributions to the Unidata community date back to the early days of the program, when active involvement was central to the program's success. He has served on both of Unidata's governing committees, providing important perspectives on the data and software needs of university researchers and educators. Since the early 1990's, David has managed SUNY-Albany's distribution of lightning data from the National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN) to members of the university community.

As David's colleague Brendon Hoch of Plymouth State University wrote:

The availability of the [lightning] data has been so reliable that the work behind the scenes to make it available has often gone overlooked. David has continued working through recent systems changes from the vendor to continue providing data, and the configuration has served as a model for the distribution of data from other lighting networks.

We truly applaud David's long-standing efforts on behalf of the Unidata community. He has indeed been instrumental in advancing Unidata's goals and its community spirit. 

David's presentation slides are available.

Questions About the Desouza Award?

Questions or comments about the Desouza Award can be sent to: support@unidata.ucar.edu