Steven Ackerman to Lead Weather Satellite Science Group

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Steve Ackerman is a scientist in the Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC), where CIMSS is housed, and a professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. He received a distinguished teaching award from Chancellor David Ward this spring and is noted for his dynamic and interactive teaching method. His research interests are varied and include the transport of aerosols (dust, smoke) and the effect of contrails and other clouds on the heat budget of the atmosphere. He has been a CIMSS researcher since 1987, a professor since 1992 and an Associate Director of SSEC since 1998. In a confirmation note to SSEC and CIMSS staff, Professor Ackerman said, “I’m excited and enthusiastic about leading CIMSS into the 21st century with continued world-class research in satellite meteorology.”

The Cooperative Institute was founded in 1980 with Verner E. Suomi, founder of the UW–Madison’s Space Science and Engineering Center, as its first director. CIMSS was established to cement a relationship between the university and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that extends back to before 1977. Then, William Smith of NOAA’s research arm, the National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service, brought a group to UW-Madison to work with SSEC’s atmospheric scientists.

Their mission was to develop new techniques that would increase the value and usability of weather forecasts, primarily by employing weather satellite data. Since CIMSS’ founding, meteorologists from around the world—from Australia, Germany, England, China, Japan and elsewhere—collaborate with CIMSS researchers in that effort. The group of university and NESDIS and recently NASA employees work in a variety of areas that make use of satellite data, including agriculture, tropical cyclones and numerical weather prediction. They also make computer simulations of products of developing satellite instruments. Research examples can be found on the CIMSS Web site.

Wiliam L. Smith, now Chief of Atmospheric Sciences at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia, was the last director of this internationally recognized atmospheric studies center. Emeritus Professor Donald R. Johnson has acted as director, with W. Paul Menzel, a NOAA research scientist, a position traditionally in Washington, DC but transferred in April to Madison. Donald Johnson continues as an associate director of SSEC and Director, Division of Earth Sciences of the Universities Space Research Association, a national science organization. Paul Menzel continues as Chief NESDIS scientist, with the NOAA CIMSS group led by Elaine Prins.