[Nsa] NCAR Scientists' Assembly Winter 2022 Newsletter

[Ben Johnson]

 NSA Winter 2022 Newsletter NCAR Scientists' Assembly Newsletter
Winter 2022 Newsletter
The NCAR Scientists' Assembly exists to foster a community of mutual
respect and cooperation within NCAR/UCAR, to facilitate effective scientist
participation in the management of NCAR, to facilitate scientific
interaction across NCAR/UCAR, to enhance communication in matters of
concern to NCAR scientists and management, to engage NCAR scientists'
skills in the guidance of NCAR’s programs, and to advise NCAR management
and UCAR governance concerning scientific policy and related matters
affecting the institution.
Editor's Note

This newsletter seeks to recreate a function that was once served by NCAR's
Staff Notes. Staff Notes have been present throughout NCAR's history,
predating the construction of the Mesa Lab. They have been published with
varying frequency: monthly from 1965-1967, weekly from 1968-1994, monthly
from 1994-2008 and every other month from 2008-2011. After that, Staff
Notes began being published daily.

When Staff Notes switched to daily publication, it became primarily a means
for circulating announcements. Human interest stories were no longer
written and a venue for creating a sense of shared experience vanished.
This newsletter seeks to distribute articles and interviews to NCAR's
scientific staff to rekindle a stronger sense of community among the labs
and the generations of scientists.
Perspectives on the Pandemic from Early Career Scientists


*Early career staff at the ECSA meetup at Avanti on December 3rd, 2021.*

While the pandemic has had a profound effect on the scientific community,
certain demographics, such as female scientists and early career
scientists, have been disproportionately affected. Myers et al. (2020)
conducted a survey of 4,535 scientists in April 2020 to estimate how the
pandemic impacted the amount of time they were able to spend on research.
The survey revealed that scientists with dependents between the ages of 0-5
lost nearly 50% of their research time in the early stages of the pandemic,
with females more strongly affected than males. Sorting the results by
discipline, bench scientists, or those in fields such as molecular biology
and chemistry in which lab access is a prerequisite for conducting
research, saw the steepest average declines in research time – nearly 40% –
while researchers in the atmospheric, earth, & ocean sciences saw an
average of 20% reduction in time they were able to devote to research.

Opportunities for socializing and mentoring have also been lost both within
the scientific community and in the broader knowledge workplace (Gibbs et
al., 2021).

In the fall of 2021, NCAR’s Early Career Scientist Assembly (ECSA) began
organizing social events for early career scientists at outdoor venues in
Boulder. The first two meetups were at Rayback Collective on October 8th
and Avanti on December 3rd.

“The ECSA steering committee mentioned that we hadn’t gotten together since
before I was even hired at NCAR. We figured it would be great to get
together if people are comfortable meeting outdoors,” said Patrick
Hawbecker (RAL). “I worked at NCAR for 8 months before the pandemic, so the
vast majority of staff that I’ve met have been during video calls. At these
events, when I see someone it’s, ‘Hey this is our first time meeting in
person!’”

“As someone who came to NCAR right after their PhD, I wanted to interact
with people, get involved with projects and contribute,” said Anna-Lena
Deppenmeier (CGD). “Everyone is trying to make the best of it but it’s not
something you can very easily cope with.”

Psychological research has suggested that a critical aspect of
collaboration and brainstorming –  synchrony of brain activity within a
group, as measured by an electroencephalogram – is a reliable predictor of
engagement and the development of positive social dynamics (Dikker et al.,
2017). Such synchrony is difficult to replicate when people aren’t in the
same room.

“Trying to brainstorm about equations on Zoom is impossible,” said Isla
Simpson (CGD).

“My advisor, Frank [Bryan], directed his camera toward his whiteboard
during one of our calls so I could see a derivation,” added Deppenmeier. “I
understand why he’s doing it because it’s so hard to do math together on
Zoom.”

Remote work also creates a social barrier to ask for mentoring in the first
place. “It’s much more difficult to email someone because you feel like
you’re taking a lot of their time. Whereas knocking on a door to ask, ‘Can
you help me with this?’ is just a few minutes,” said Priyam Raghuraman
(CGD).

Beyond these difficulties, the pandemic coincides with a time during which
a broader set of expectations are placed upon early career researchers for
both hiring and advancement. These expectations include a requirement for
research to provide societal benefits and a commitment to advancing
diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Early career scientists have begun to organize and integrate the concerns
of their generation by forming National Young Academies, or junior versions
of each country’s National Academies (López-Vergès et al., 2021). Such
academies have proliferated in the 21st century, partly in response to the
unique challenges faced by younger generations. The concept was started in
Germany with the founding of Die Junge Akademie in 2000 and spread to
fourteen European countries, many of which experienced severe cuts in
science funding due to austerity measures in the wake of the 2007-2008
global financial crisis.

The United States’ version of a National Young Academy is the National
Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) “New Voices”
program. New Voices provides summaries of relevant research and personal
experiences to administrators and funding agencies to advocate for just
practices, such as ensuring that parental leave is taken into account when
grant performance is evaluated.

“The NASEM New Voices program focuses on bringing a diversity of
perspectives from early-career US scientists across academia, industry, and
civil society to inform NASEM's efforts, especially thinking about how to
expand diversity, access and participation in NASEM for a new generation of
STEMM professionals,” said Jane Zelikova, an ecologist who is executive
director of the Soil Carbon Solutions Center at Colorado State University.
Zelikova is a member of the 2021-2023 New Voices cohort of early career
leaders.

Another member of this cohort, Hussam Mahmoud, an Associate Professor of
Civil and Environmental Engineering at Colorado State University, added,
“What initiatives to take and what and how we want our ‘voices’ to be heard
is up to us. For example, we have a climate initiative now among our
cohorts. We are discussing issues that vary from how to change the
engineering curriculum to address climate change to how to ensure health
care equity in an era of climate change.”

Zelikova reflected on the changing expectations for younger generations,
“My personal hope is that I can use this amazing opportunity to collaborate
with other New Voices cohort members past and present to fundamentally
rethink how we evaluate and reward scientific excellence. For example, we
want academics/researchers to do cutting edge innovative work, but we also
need that work to get into the world quickly to address society's very
pressing challenges. The incentive structures within academic/research
institutions are not aligned with how science is evolving and what we need
scientists to do beyond their focused research (communicate that science,
do outreach, excel in teaching and mentorship, entrepreneurship, et
cetera). But only the research components are truly valued and rewarded
today in most institutions. We need to fundamentally change how we value
and reward excellence across the sciences, including excellence in
outreach, mentorship, public engagement, et cetera.”

Incorporating perspectives from scientists at different stages in their
careers is a point of emphasis both at the national level and locally at
NCAR. “The ECSA intentionally added postdocs to its roster to make an
effort to get them involved in the decision making process,” said Hawbecker.

Contrasting with the varied experiences of staff, a central aspect of the
pandemic is that its influence was felt in a way that spanned generations.

“I do feel like one of the silver linings of the pandemic is that since it
affected everyone, there is a lot more intention to ask, ‘How are you
doing? How are you getting through this?’ You’re more aware of people’s
feelings and mental health,” said Deppenmeier.

“I’ve been here for almost seven years and the pandemic has been a third of
my time as an employee. I already knew a lot of people but I feel like I
got to bond with them more since these are the only people you’re talking
with,” said Simpson.

As the shift from primarily remote work to in-person work commences,
perhaps this shared experience will provide a foundation to rebuild the
community that was lost.

*The ECSA will be hosting two upcoming outdoor social events on Friday,
February 25th at Sanitas Brewing Co and Friday, March 25th at Rayback
Collective. For more information, contact Patrick Hawbecker at
hawbecke at ucar.edu <hawbecke at ucar.edu>.*
References

Dikker, S., and Coauthors, 2017: Brain-to-Brain Synchrony Tracks Real-World
Dynamic Group Interactions in the Classroom. *Curr Bio*, *27*, 1375–1380.

Gibbs, M., F. Mengel, and C. Siemroth, Work from Home & Productivity:
Evidence from Personnel & Analytics Data on IT Professionals. Becker
Friedman Institute.

López-Vergès, S., and Coauthors, 2021: Mitigating losses: how scientific
organisations can help address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on
early-career researchers. *Humanit Soc Sci Commun*, *8*, 1–8.

Myers, K. R., and Coauthors, 2020: Unequal effects of the COVID-19 pandemic
on scientists. *Nat Hum Behav,* *4*, 880–883.
Scientist Spotlight: Tammy Weckwerth (EOL)

*The scientist spotlight aims to cycle through NCAR's constituent labs,
featuring interviews from staff at different stages of their careers. This
interview was conducted by Ben Johnson (CISL).*

*You started at NCAR as an ASP student assistant and ASP Post-doc in the
1990's and continued your career here all the way up to Senior Scientist.
What's been the most significant change you've seen during your time at
NCAR?*
Ever since I started studying atmospheric sciences, it was my goal to work
at NCAR. It was so awesome to come to NCAR as a student and to meet the
scientists whose papers I read in my classes. For me, NCAR remains a
wonderful place to work and to learn and to grow but some changes in
culture and reporting requirements have made it more challenging to be
creative and to think outside-the-box.

Another big change is field work. In the 90’s when we went to a field
campaign, everyone was completely immersed in the project and focused
together on collecting the best dataset possible to achieve the scientific
objectives – and to make serendipitous discoveries. Now everyone in the
field remains all-in, however, with our advanced communication technology,
we are now expected to also keep up with our “day jobs.”

When I started as a Scientist I at NCAR, I was not expected to write
proposals for external funding. That is a big change as now many positions
are required to bring in external funds.

Another significant change is a formal, more concerted effort to provide
useful mentoring now. I was fortunate to have excellent mentors throughout
my career so I know that’s essential for job satisfaction and personal
development. I’m striving to provide that to the students and early-career
scientists who I now mentor.

*Roger Wakimoto supervised your graduate work at UCLA. He then became
associate director of EOL in 2005 and director of NCAR in 2010. What was it
like to have two periods of your professional careers intersect in such a
considerable way?*
Roger and my NCAR PhD advisor, Jim Wilson, both provided me with excellent
opportunities at all stages of my career. Starting in graduate school, they
gave me field campaign responsibilities that were necessary for the field
project’s success and this inspired my love of field work. Then they gave
me opportunities and encouragement to propose, design and lead other large
field campaigns while they provided endless support behind the scenes. It
was empowering to know that they both had my back.

*Have any technological advances or innovations occurred during your career
that altered how you conduct your research?*
Yes! When I was a graduate student, I drafted my figures with special ink
pens and created slides for presentations in a photographer’s dark room.
Creation of figures was much more time consuming and one minor modification
would send me back into the dark room. We laid out conference preprints by
hand and submitted hard copies in advance for a volume of conference
proceedings to be distributed in person at the conference. Now figures are
all created with software programs and I don’t even write conference
preprints anymore. Also we used to worry about disk space for storing data
analyses, especially multi-Doppler radar retrievals. Now disk space is
practically a non-issue.

*Are there some particular aspects of your job that you would define as the
highlights of your career?*
For me personally, the travel has been especially wonderful, fun and
enlightening. I am so grateful for the worldwide collaborations, many of
which have developed into lifelong friendships. The field campaigns and the
conferences and the NCAR visitors all provide opportunities to meet people
and learn about different cultures. Whenever I would host a visitor, I
would have them over to my house for dinner and my children would also
learn about different parts of the world through those visits. Many people
would reciprocate when I would travel and it made those trips so much
richer and more enjoyable to have that personal touch. Many of these
personal connections continue even through the pandemic.

Thinking more broadly about my contributions during my career, I’m most
proud of the large field campaigns that I helped to lead. We collected
comprehensive datasets during the domestic and international field projects
and they enabled and inspired diverse research avenues. It’s rewarding to
see the dissertations and publications that come from these field campaigns.

*You've managed many field campaigns over the years, both in the US and
internationally. What challenges has this type of work posed for your
domestic life and how have you handled them?*
I have two children and it was definitely difficult for me to leave them at
home for multiple weeks at a time while doing field work. But I have a very
supportive husband and NCAR has many great benefits and one of them was
reimbursement for additional child care expenses, beyond normal daily
expenses, while I was on travel. So when I traveled, we flew my husband’s
mother out to help with the kids and life. When my husband (who also works
at NCAR) traveled for work, we used that NCAR benefit to pay for my
parents’ trip to come and help me with the children. When my husband and I
both worked in the field or attended conferences, we typically took the
kids with us, along with one set of grandparents to take care of them while
we were working. My daughter’s first trip was to an international
conference in Australia when she was just 3 months old!

*A lot of your field campaigns focus on thunderstorm development. Have you
had any close calls while in the field?*
No but I flew into a hurricane! Before I could do that, I passed Naval
survival training because the ELDORA airborne radar missions required
flying on a Navy P-3 aircraft. The survival training was an adventure in
itself, including experiencing a barometric chamber and underwater egress
training while wearing a blindfold.

On site surveys, I’ve been stuck on the median on the autobahn in Germany
and stuck in mud in a farm field in Kansas. On a field campaign, I rushed a
colleague to an emergency room in Italy, along with my lame Italian skills
and English-Italian dictionary gripped tightly in hand.

This one is not related to thunderstorms but my husband was stranded in
Romania after losing his passport there! We were there together for a
conference and it was heart-wrenching to leave him standing on the other
side of the security gate at the Romanian airport when I left. I couldn’t
stay to help him figure it out because my in-laws, who were taking care of
the kids in Boulder, had to go back to their home and back to work. My
husband ended up spending three extra days there to get a new passport and
had several harrowing, expensive experiences.

*If you could give your graduate student self any advice, what would it be?*
Embrace the opportunities to learn, to grow and to go outside your comfort
zone. Work on your programming skills. Breathe. Don’t be afraid to ask for
help and make yourself available to help others. Write more papers. Make
time for yourself: regularly take Tammy time. And always remember the most
important things: be happy and have fun.

*Looking forward, what research frontiers are you hoping to pursue?*
I’m learning more about data assimilation. It’s a great extension beyond my
work in observational meteorology. It’s exciting to learn more about the
applications between our amazing instruments and numerical models.

About the NCAR Scientists' Assembly


*All members of the NCAR scientific staff (Scientists, Associate
Scientists, Project Scientists, Post-Docs and Visiting Scientists) and
research engineering staff are members of the NCAR Scientists’ Assembly
unless they remove their name from the membership list. To learn more about
the assembly, visit the internal NCAR website
<https://internal-ncar.ucar.edu/nsa>.*

*Early Career Scientists' Assembly (ECSA) Steering Committee*

*ACOM*

*CGD*

*CISL*

*EOL*

*HAO*

*MMM*

*RAL*

Jun Zhang (ASP)

Dan Amrhein

Agbeli Ameko

Carol Costanza*

Paul Bryans

May Wong*

Mrinal Biswas


Meg Fowler

Charlie Becker


Christopher Riedel (ASP)

Patrick Hawbecker
*NCAR Scientists' Assembly Executive Committee (NSA-EC)*

*ACOM*

*CGD*

*CISL*

*EOL*

*HAO*

*MMM*

*RAL*

Eric Apel

Matthew Long*

Allison Baker

Britton Stephens

Anna Malanushenko

Cindy Bruyère

Andrew Newman*

Helen Worden

Peter Lawrence

Ben Johnson

Tammy Weckwerth

Kevin Pham

Peter Sullivan

Fei Chen

**Denotes committee chairs. The ECSA committee chairs concurrently serve as
members of the NSA-EC.*


*Flatirons photo by Jesse Varner. Used under the Creative Commons
Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license
<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/deed.en>. The Scientists'
Assembly aims to provide curated information to the scientific community at
NCAR. If you would like to contribute content to this newsletter, please
email nsa-ec at ucar.edu <nsa-ec at ucar.edu>.*
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