Dr. Zhaoxia Pu - Chair, NOAA Science Advisory Board Member
Dr. Zhaoxia Pu is a professor of atmospheric sciences and a fellow of the American Meteorological Society and Royal Meteorological Society. Her research interests include numerical weather prediction, data assimilation, numerical modeling, and predictability, with specific topics on satellite and radar data assimilation, mesoscale severe weather systems, coupled earth system modeling and data assimilation, observing system simulation experiments, targeting weather observations, atmospheric boundary layers over complex terrain, and applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning in NWP and climate forecasting. Before joining the faculty at the University of Utah in 2004, she worked as a graduate student fellow (1993-1996) and a postdoctoral researcher (1997-1998) at the NOAA NCEP Environmental Modeling Center in Washington, DC area and as a research scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland during 1998-2004.
Dr. Pu has extensive experience collaborating with NOAA, NASA, DOE, ONR, and NSF and has managed to carry out over 30 research projects. In addition, Dr. Pu has authored over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and participated in over ten major field programs. In recent years, she has been deeply involved in NOAA’s Hurricane Forecasting Improvement Program, Next-Generation Global Prediction System (NGGPS), and Unified Forecasting System (UFS) programs. More importantly, her research projects have also included substantial components in research to operational transition.
Dr. Pu has served as a member of numerous national and international science teams and advisory boards, review panels, editorial boards, and service committees. She was overall program co-chair for the 96th American meteorological Society Annual Meeting, AMS 22nd and 24th conferences on weather and forecasting, and 18th and 20th conferences on numerical weather prediction.
Dr. DaNa Carlis - CIWRO Technical Program Manager, NSSL
DaNa L. Carlis, Ph.D. is an award-winning meteorologist and serves as the Director at NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL). At NSSL, he is responsible for leading the scientific and information technology efforts of the laboratory. As NSSL Director, he leads the premiere severe weather research laboratory with more than 160 scientists, engineers, and administrators. Prior to NSSL, DaNa served as the Deputy Director of NOAA’s Global Systems Laboratory (GSL) in Boulder, CO and prior to GSL at the Weather Program Office (WPO) in Washington, DC where he was the founding program manager of the Earth Prediction Innovation Center (EPIC). DaNa enjoys the fact that he’s able to work between science, policy, and society to ensure better products and services to the American people.
DaNa attended Howard University in Washington, DC where he obtained a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Chemistry (2000), as well as a MS (2002) and PhD (2007) in Atmospheric Sciences. In 2007, DaNa was the 2nd African American male to receive his PhD in Atmospheric Sciences from Howard University.
DaNa is originally from Tulsa, OK where he developed a love for science and math at an early age and in 2018 was inducted into the Booker T. Washington High School Distinguished Hall of Fame. As an active member of the community, DaNa serves on the American Meteorological Society (AMS) Council and on the Early Childhood Academy Public Charter School Board of Trustees. In his spare time, DaNa enjoys cheering for his favorite sports team the Oklahoma Sooners, mentoring and coaching students, and spending time with his family. DaNa is married to Dr. Lydia Carlis, Chief Learning and Impact Officer at Acelero Learning and Founder/CEO of Eyemagination Enterprises LLC, and they have a daughter, Dia Carlis, who is a paralegal at The Kearney Law Group in New York, New York and 2-time graduate of Georgia State University.
Dr. Ana Barros, Panel Member
Dr. Ana P. Barros is Donald Biggar Willett Distinguished Chair of Engineering and Professor and Head of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UIUC. Before joining UIUC, she was the Edmund T. Pratt, Jr. School Distinguished Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Duke University where she remains an Emeritus Professor. Dr. Barros was also in the engineering faculty at the University of Porto, Penn State, and Harvard University. Her primary research interests are in Hydrology, Hydrometeorology and Environmental Physics with a focus on multiscale water-cycle processes in regions of complex terrain, land-atmosphere interactions, and predictability and risk assessment of extreme events. Her research relies on intensive field and laboratory experiments, satellite-based remote sensing, computational modeling, and environmental informatics. Prof. Barros served in multiple committees over the years, such as the Space Studies Board of the National Research Council, the Water Science and Technology Board, the Board of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, and the US National Committee for the International Hydrology Program (IHP) of the UNESCO. She was a Senior Fellow at the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA) 2011-2015, and a founding member of the ASCE’s Committee on Climate Change and Adaptation. At present, she serves on the Biological and Environmental Research Advisory Committee of the Department of Energy, the Climate Security Roundtable of the National Academies, and the Committee on Earth Sciences and Applications from Space of the Space Studies Board. Dr. Barros is the past President of the Hydrology Section of the American Geophysical Union, and she served as Chair of Atmospheric and Hydrospheric Sciences of AAAS and as a Member of the Council of American Meteorological Society. She was Chief Editor of the Journal of Hydrometeorology for five years, and she is an Editor of AGU Advances and PNAS Nexus. Prof. Barros was elected to the UCAR Board of Trustees in 2022 and she serves in the ASCE Industry Leadership Council. She is a Fellow of AGU, AMS, ASCE and AAAS, a senior member of IEEE, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
Dr. Wen-Chau Lee, Panel Member
Dr. Wen-Chau Lee received his PhD in 1988 from UCLA. He is a Senior Scientist at the NSF NCAR and the Co-PI and Chief Scientist of the Airborne Phased Array Radar (APAR).
Wen-Chau has investigated internal airflow structures of high impact weather events using ground-based and airborne Doppler weather radars, including tornadoes, bow echoes, and hurricanes. As the lead scientist of the NSF NCAR ELDORA airborne Doppler radar, he has led the development of open-source radar data quality control and analysis software used worldwide. Wen-Chau holds two patents, called the velocity track display (VTD) technique, to deduce the structure and center pressure of landfalling hurricanes using real-time WSR-88D data, providing critical information to NHC to make better forecasts and issue public warnings. Lee was the lead PI for the 2008 Terrain-influenced Monsoon Rainfall Experiment (TiMREX) that deployed the NCAR S-Pol radar to study extreme rainfall in southern Taiwan.
Wen-Chau was the Facility Manager of the EOL/RSF from 2010 to 2020.He was an editor of the AMS Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology from 2016-2024. Lee is a fellow of the American meteorological Society and the Chinese Meteorological Society of Taiwan.
Dr. Kelsey Ellis, Panel Member
Dr. Kelsey Ellis is an Associate Professor at the University of Tennessee in the Department of Geography and Sustainability. She currently serves as the founding director of the Institute for Climate and Community Resilience. Her research is in the intersection of climatology, hazards, and society. In her research, she assesses the spatiotemporal patterns and trends of atmospheric hazards, including tropical cyclones, tornadoes, heat, flooding, and more. Additionally, much of her research incorporates public risk perception, vulnerability, resiliency, and hazard impacts. She has spent much of the last decade studying tornadoes in the state of Tennessee, including their climatology and impacts, with a focus on those that occur at night. Her work is funding by NOAA, USDA, NSF, the Natural Hazards Center, and the Heising-Simons Foundation, among others. She has worked with the National Weather Service to help contribute to their Research To Operations initiative, and for several years served on the VORTEX-SE science steering committee for NOAA.
Dr. Jonathan Poterjoy, Panel Member
Dr. Jonathan Poterjoy is an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland, where he serves as the Graduate Program Director for the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science. His research focuses on improving numerical modeling and data assimilation for Earth system prediction. He obtained his academic training in meteorology and atmospheric science, earning a Ph.D. in Meteorology from Pennsylvania State University, where he specialized in ensemble-based data assimilation techniques to enhance forecast accuracy.
Dr. Poterjoy has contributed to advancing ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) approaches, four-dimensional variational (4DVar) methods, localized particle filters (PFs), and hybrid data assimilation frameworks. His research has emphasized applications in high-impact weather events—such as hurricanes and mid-latitude cyclones—and has explored ways to optimize predictive skill within operational forecasting systems. His present research focuses on bridging new data assimilation theory to large applications, using mathematical developments in state and parameter estimation and machine learning.
In addition to his technical contributions, Dr. Poterjoy has mentored numerous graduate students and early career scientists. He regularly serves on committees and panels aimed at bridging gaps between meteorological research and operational forecasting and currently serves as an associate editor for the American Meteorological Society, American Geophysical Union, and Royal Meteorological Society.
Dr. Tristan L'Ecuyer - CI Director ex officio member, Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies
Dr. Tristan L’Ecuyer is a professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOS) and director of the NOAA Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. L’Ecuyer’s research group pioneers new methods that maximize the value of satellite observations to address the pressing questions in climate science. A central focus of this work is using global observations to improve the representation of clouds, radiation, precipitation, and related atmospheric processes in climate models. L'Ecuyer also leads a NASA CubeSat mission called PREFIRE that is measuring Earth’s complete emission spectrum with the goal of improving predicted rates of Arctic warming, sea ice loss, and ice sheet melt. L’Ecuyer teaches courses on global climate, radar and satellite meteorology, and scientific programming to senior undergraduates and graduate students.
