Talk: Chasing Interdisciplinarity While Chasing Tornadoes: an Overview of the CASA ERC
The CASA team is creating the new technology of user-driven radar networks that are capable of comprehensively mapping regions of the atmosphere that are beyond the reach of today’s radars. The driving vision of the center is that dramatic improvements in sensing, detecting, predicting, warning, and responding to hazardous weather events can be achieved by building a system that targets its resources onto key regions where and when the end-user need is greatest. Achieving this vision requires the sustained collaboration of engineers, decision scientists, computer scientists, meteorologists, and sociologists, working in conjunction with the ultimate end-users, to create a new approach to weather hazard response.
Part technical, part human interest, this talk addresses the challenges, the pleasures, and the opportunities inherent in a cross-disciplinary systems-level research environment that address an important national need and provides an exciting and fertile learning environment for tomorrow’s science and engineering students.