[GEM] THE GEM MESSENGER, Volume 25, Number 46

Thu Nov 12 10:21:26 PST 2015

***************************
     THE GEM MESSENGER
***************************

Volume 25, Number 46
November 12, 2015

============================================================
Table of Contents

1. Student Representative Report
2. Workshop Coordinator Report
3. JOB OPENING: Tenure-Track Faculty Position in Remote Sensing & Space Sciences: University of Illinois

============================================================

------------------------------------------------------------
1. Student Representative Report
------------------------------------------------------------
From: Robert Allen (loisks at umich.edu) and Lois Sarno-Smith

Student Day and student activities went well this year at GEM. Student Day featured 20 minutes talks from 14 students with different levels of experience and from several different universities. Topics covered in the tutorials ranged from ground-based observational techniques, to magnetic reconnection, to basics about the Sun and the solar wind.

This year at GEM we also introduced a Student Proposal Writing Panel dinner.  The panel consisted of a NSF representative, three senior scientists, and an early career scientist in the GEM community and discussed grant writing tips and strategies. The panelists were Mike Wiltberger, Drew Turner, Phil Valek, Lynn Kistler, and Janet Kozyra. The workshop was structured in an open-question style, resulting in most of the discussion focusing around student questions.

The GEM students concluded the GEM Workshop with a student-organized hike through the beautiful mountains around Snowmass. Approximately 20 – 30 students joined in on the several hour hike, and all seemed to have a really great time! We plan on continuing to have this type of student bonding activities for future GEMs.

The students also introduced a GEM Community Facebook page this year. The goal of the Facebook page is to allow for open communication and information sharing amongst the GEM community throughout the year. We hope that everyone will join the Facebook group and use it as a way to share useful information and achievements within our community. 

In summary, this past year was a very successful year for the GEM student community. We all look forward to our joint meeting with CEDAR this summer.

------------------------------------------------------------
2. Workshop Coordinator Report
------------------------------------------------------------
From: Zhonghua Xu (zxu77 at vt.edu) and Robert Clauer

At GEM 2015 Summer Workshop, we have 223 participants including 148 scientist participants and 75 student participants, from over 50 institutions. Among them, there are 25 international participants (17 scientists and 9 students/young scientist) from 13 countries: Australia, Canada, China, Finland, France, Germany, India, Japan, Norway, Russia, South Korea, Turkey, and UK. The registration information for scientist, scientist and student participants from US shows that top five groups of most participants are from NASA, University of California Los Angeles, University of New Hampshire, University of Colorado Boulder, and University of Michigan. 

In this year, the GEM funding supported 57 student/young scientist supports from 20 institutions in 9 countries. It is the most diversity of the student participants in recent GEM Summer Workshops. We managed to provide them full support, including air-tickets and lodging. Students pay reduced registration fee regardless whether receiving funding or not. We have supported 9 students/young scientist from 8 international universities/institutes, including Canada, Finland, India, Japan, Russia, Turkey, and UK. They were supported as the US students for their travel and lodging inside the US, except for their international flights. The top three domestic universities are UNH (13), UCLA (9) and UTSA (7). There were 21 students using their own funding to participate the workshop. They all received the registration fee support from GEM, which is $225/person.

Following the suggestions of the GEM Steering Committee, all 57 graduate students supported by GEM funding were involved and present their research in the poster or oral sessions. The rationale is that those students will benefit most from discussing the frontier research topics with our prominent scientists and professors. 80% of the graduate students are in their 3th or higher year graduate school, but the 20% students who are in 1st and 2nd year of graduate school are also showing their involvement in research and presentable results. This is probably due to the fact we started to request evaluations of students’ readiness from their advisors. 

Although we see more female students in recent years than in 10 and 20 years ago, there is still a large imbalance. This year we supported 37 male students and 20 female students. The number of male of students is more than twice as many as that of female students. Needless to say, this imbalance will make the existed imbalance in Space Science even worse as those students represent our future workforce. So our community should improve the awareness of this issue and provide encouragements and support to female students. 

As previously requested and suggested by the participants, the GEM student tutorial and training sessions are recorded with video-camera for the first time. The presentation slides and video are shared via Google Drive and YOUTUBE to all the GEM participants with the permission of present owners. If possible, the GEM workshop will keep providing this service to the community. Also, the students had a proposal training session with some senior scientists after the student dinner. The session was so welcomed by the students and was extended to more than two hours.

(Editor’s note: The complete report will appear in the upcoming GEMstone Newsletter. People who are interested in the multimedia resources should contact Zhonghua Xu for details.)

------------------------------------------------------------
3. JOB OPENING: Tenure-Track Faculty Position in Remote Sensing & Space Sciences: University of Illinois
------------------------------------------------------------
From: Jonathan Makela (jmakela at illinois.edu)

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign – Position in Remote Sensing & Space Sciences 

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign invites applications for a tenure-track faculty position in remote sensing and space sciences, with particular emphasis in one or more of the following areas: novel electro- optics and radio/radar technologies for probing the space environment; emerging sensor technologies for distributed sensing of the space environment; space flight hardware design and development; and high-performance scientific computing and numerical modeling and simulation of the space plasma environment. This position was created in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation for Faculty Development in the Space Sciences. Applications are encouraged from candidates whose research programs will complement existing strengths and activities at Illinois, and have the potential to expand into new directions and form new collaborations within the department, college, and university. The intended appointment is at the Assistant Professor level. However, candidates with significant experience may also be considered.

The ECE Department has one of the very top programs in the United States, granting approximately 350 B.S. degrees, 100 M.S. degrees, and 60 Ph.D. degrees annually. The department has a rich history of pioneering research and education leadership in the development of radio and optical sensing technologies and their applications to space science. The ECE Department has recently moved into its new 235,000 sq. ft. net-zero energy design building. The University of Illinois is home to Blue Waters - one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, supported by the National Science Foundation and developed and operated by the University of Illinois’ National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Qualified candidates may be hired as Blue Waters Professors who will be provided substantial allocations on and expedited access to the supercomputer. To be considered as a Blue Waters Professor, candidates need to mention Blue Waters as one of their preferred research areas in their online application, and include a reference to Blue Waters in their cover letter.

Please visit http://jobs.illinois.edu and select Faculty Positions, College of Engineering: Professor (Open Rank) - Electrical and Computer Engineering (F1500094), to view the complete position announcement and application instructions. Full consideration will be given to applications received by December 15, 2015, but applications will continue to be accepted until the position is filled. Enquiries may be directed to Professor Farzad Kamalabadi, Chair of the Faculty Search Committee; e-mail: farzadk at illinois.edu; phone: 217-333-4406.

The University of Illinois conducts criminal background checks on all job candidates upon acceptance of a contingent offer.

Illinois is an EEO Employer/Vet/Disabled www.inclusiveillinois.illinois.edu.

========================================
The Geospace Environment Modeling (GEM) program is sponsored by the Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences (AGS) of the National Science Foundation (NSF).

To broadcast announcements to the GEM community, please fill out the online request form at:

http://aten.igpp.ucla.edu/gem/messenger_form

To subscribe or opt out of the GEM mailing list, or to make any other requests, please contact Peter Chi, the GEM Communications Coordinator, by e-mail at 

<gemeditor at igpp.ucla.edu>

URL of GEM Home Page:  http://aten.igpp.ucla.edu/gemwiki
Workshop Information:  http://www.cpe.vt.edu/gem/index.html
========================================