About Russ DeSouza

Russ DeSouza first became actively involved with the Unidata Program in 1989 as a member of the Unidata Users Committee representing Millersville University. He quickly demonstrated his hallmark concern for finding approaches and technologies that worked for educating students. In 1990, he was asked to be a member of the Unidata Policy Committee, where he played a critical role representing the interests and concerns of "small" colleges and universities and helping the committee to maintain a "whole picture" view of the Unidata community. He was the committee's liaison to the Users Committee, so was a participant in all Users Committee activities as well. In 1991, he and his colleagues at Millersville volunteered to maintain the educational "floater channel" (a part of the Unidata/Wisconsin data stream), an effort that in 1994 was expanded to include a channel for NEXRAD Information Dissemination Service data.

DeSouza resigned from the Unidata Policy Committee in the summer of 1995 to concentrate on his treatment for malignant melanoma. He retired officially from the Millersville faculty on May 17, 1997, and died on June 6, 1997.