Jessica Blunt joined the Unidata Program Center as a software development summer intern on May 20, 2019. Jessica is currently an undergraduate Meteorology student with minor concentrations in Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Oklahoma; she'll be graduating in December of 2019. This summer, she'll be focusing on producing updated and additional IDV tutorial videos for Unidata's YouTube channel, as well as working with the IDV codebase to make additions and improvements.
Aodhan Sweeney joined the Unidata Program Center as a software development summer intern on May 20, 2019. Aodhan graduated from Florida State University in May 2019 with a bachelor's degree in Physics; he will be starting a Ph.D. program in Atmospheric Science at the University of Washington in the fall. This summer, Aodhan will be working to extend Unidata's siphon package, with the goal of making publicly-available atmospheric datasets more accessible.
Howard Van Dam joined the Unidata Program Center (UPC) team on January 14 2019 as a Software Engineer. A Colorado native, he has explored the wonders of the state from the highest mountains to the eastern plains.
Howard started out studying music at University, but switched to electronics and electrical engineering as a way to provide an income while continuing to enjoy performing in jazz, classical, and musical theatre settings. He received a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Colorado after completing degrees at Pikes Peak and Front Range Community Colleges. Howard also holds a CompTIA Security+ certification and is passionate about all things cybersecurity.
The Unidata Program Center's two summer student interns — Hailey Johnson from the University of Florida and Jon Thielen from Iowa State University — have come to the end of their summer appointments. After a summer of dedicated work they presented the results of their projects to the UPC staff on August 3, 2018. You can find videos of their presentations to the UPC staff on the Unidata Seminar Series page.
Jonathan Thielen joined the Unidata Program Center as a software development summer intern on May 21, 2018. Jonathan will be a senior this fall at Iowa State University, majoring in meteorology and mathematics. His current research revolves around WRF sensitivity studies, focusing on convective morphology of mesoscale convective systems. This summer, Jon will be working on further integrating xarray into MetPy and implementing cross section functionality.
Hailey Johnson joined the Unidata Program Center as a software development summer intern on May 21, 2018. Hailey is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Geological Sciences with a minor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Florida. Her dissertation research focuses on numerical methods and applications in coastal sciences, concentrating on improvements to numerical modeling of coastline evolution. Her main goal during her internship will be improving the THREDDS Data Server user experience, primarily through a redesign of the TDS web interface.
Cece Hedrick joined the Unidata Program Center (UPC) team on October 16th, 2017 as a software developer. Her first day at the office coincided with the joint meeting of Unidata's Users' and Strategic Advisory Committees, so … we pretty much threw her in the deep end of the pool. On the bright side, Cece got an instant introduction to the community we're working for.
Cece studied astrophysics and computer science at the University of Nebraska. As an astronomer she has worked in a wide range of research categories from supermassive black holes, circumstellar disks, and symbiotic stars to the Martian atmosphere as part of NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter mission. As a computer scientist she has also explored a wide range of research topics, such as, bioinformatics, modeling and simulation for war gaming, and user experience/human computer interaction within the learning sciences. As a software developer, Cece has previously worked on military secure messaging and data transfer solutions, cable television software product continuous integration, and space weather prediction and analysis software.
Briah'Davis joined the Unidata Program Center as a SOARS summer intern on May 30, 2017. This fall Briah'will be a senior at the University at Albany, SUNY, where she is majoring in Atmospheric Science and Computer Science with a minor in Mathematics.
SOARS, Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science, is an undergraduate-to-graduate bridge program at UCAR designed to broaden participation in the atmospheric and related sciences. The program is built around research, mentoring and community. SOARS participants, called protégés, spend up to four summers doing research in atmospheric and related sciences. This is Briah's second summer in the program and her first at Unidata.
Aubrey Kane joined the Unidata Program Center as a communications summer intern on May 30, 2017. Aubrey is a senior at Regis University, majoring in mathematics with a minor concentration in communication. She plans to begin applying to graduate programs in statistics in the 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.
Tyler Wixtrom joined the Unidata Program Center as a software development summer intern on May 30, 2017. Tyler has just graduated from Valparaiso University with a Bachelor of Science in Meteorology and will be starting work toward a Master's degree in Atmospheric Sciences at Texas Tech University in the fall. His main interests are in Numerical Weather Prediction and the transition of research to operational applications, as well as in the development of software tools in support of forecasters and researchers. Tyler will be working in development of the MetPy package, with the goal of adding user-friendly functionality for vertical interpolation to various coordinate systems, such as isentropic or isobaric coordinates.
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.
