Increasing America’s Environmental IQ
“Our mandate is to increase the environmental IQ of America,” says Dave Jones, CEO of StormCenter Communications, a new resident of bwtech@UMBC’s Incubator and Accelerator. The company is conducting research with NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) to improve the communication of weather and climate change data in order to enhance preparation for and responses to major storms.
StormCenter is developing the Envirocast® Vision™ Touchtable (EVTT), a potential visualization and collaboration tool for the National Weather Service and FEMA that will enable scientists to share information on storm data and make decisions on where to position response crews before storms hit. The EVTT will be a prototype decision support tool for The Gulf of Mexico Alliance (governors of all Gulf Coast states). StormCenter is also working with the state of Texas as a model for how the rest of the Gulf Coast States can be more prepared for weather and climate change impacts to the region.
The company’s other major project involves sharing climate change information to the wider world. StormCenter’s broadcast studio will transmit presentations on weather and climate change information to classrooms in K-16 schools and universities. Most recently, they collaborated with NOAA and the U.S. State Department to broadcast a scientific panel discussion on Climate Literacy to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen via videoconferencing technology.
Jones, a meteorologist who once did on-air weather forecasting for NBC4 in Washington, DC, also sent a crew to Greenland in July to take video of The North Greenland Eemian Ice Drilling project (NEEM). The footage aired on the Weather Channel and PBS. “We want to leverage the work we’re doing with NOAA and NASA and turn material into original stories for broadcast and use in the classroom,” says Jones.
One reason Jones decided to relocate his company to UMBC was the opportunity to hire student interns, as well as collaborate with faculty on research projects. UMBC’s existing collaborations with NASAthe university ranks 2nd nationally in NASA university research grants and cooperative agreementsalso convinced Jones that StormCenter Communications would be a natural fit with bwtech@UMBC.
(1/29/10)
