The National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced that Nathaniel Frissell is an awardee of the Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER). Grants from this prestigious program are only available to early career, tenure track faculy members who have demonstrated an ability to integrate research and education. Dr. Frissell is also the PI of a $1.3M NSF grant to develop a ground-based network of equipment and software to study space weather using amateur radio: http://vt.superdarn.org/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=336. Nathaniel performed graduate studies in the VT SuperDARN group under the direction of Drs. Baker and Ruohoniemi and graduated in 2016: http://vt.superdarn.org/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=236. He is now faculty at the University of Scranton (Pennsylvania). See also https://news.scranton.edu/articles/2020/12/news-faculty-nsf-careergrant-frissell.shtml and
http://www.arrl.org/news/nathaniel-frissell-w2naf-awarded-national-science-foundation-career-grant
Congratulations, Nathaniel!

Following the fizzle of the geomagnetic 'Big Event' (G3 storm) forecast for Dec 9-11, 2020 due to the CME observed on Dec 7, Prof. Patricia Reiff at Rice University offered her thoughts on how to identify promising solar conditions to HamSCI mailing list subscribers (https://www.hamsci.org/). Quoting from Pat's email:
>> I wasn’t alarmed enough to send out a special alert to my "spacalrt" system. Why?
Well, for the *really big* events, there is a halo CME, centered and expanding uniformly around the sun, saying the CME is pointed our way AND there is a HUGE amount of "snow" on the LASCO coronagraph, from the energetic particles hitting the detector. When I heard the announcement, I immediately downloaded the coronagraph movie and saw neither of these.<<
Pat has offered specific guidance on how to diagnose these conditions in SOHO coronograph observations - See 'Read More'.
The Rice space weather forecast and information on how to subscribe to the "spacalrt" email list are available at http://mms.rice.edu/mms/forecast.php

Photo credit: SOHO LASCO C2 image from the NASA SOHO website

The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) located in Boulder, Co. sponsors postdoctoral fellowships tthrough the Advanced Study Program (ASP). The program provides successful applicants with considerable freedom to pursue their own research interests. Fellows develop research projects in collaboration with NCAR scientists and engineers, but all are expected to choose their own research directions and are responsible for the design and conduct of their projects. The program website is https://asp.ucar.edu/postdocs/prospective-applicants
Virginia Tech graduate Dr. Dong Lin is a current ASP postdoc and is available to answer questions about the program.
Application deadline: December 21, 2020

The 2021 Heliophysics Summer School will be held June 15 - 22, 2021 in beautiful Boulder, Colorado. The school is seeking approximately 35 graduate students, from masters through postdoctoral fellows. Participants will learn about the exciting science of heliophysics as a broad, coherent discipline that reaches in space from the Earth’s troposphere to the depths of the Sun, and in time from the formation of the solar system to the distant future. For more details see 'Read More'. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the 2021 Heliophysics Summer School may be held in a virtual format.

Website: https://cpaess.ucar.edu/heliophysics/summer-school/recruitment-announcement

Deadline for Applications: January 22, 2021

VT SuperDARN student Shibaji Chakraborty successfully presented his Project and Report in support of earning a Master of Arts Degree from Virginia Tech's Department of Statistics on December 1, 2020. The title of his presentation was 'Characterization of SuperDARN Backscatter Echoes using Machine Learning Techniques'. The background to this unusual accomplishment is a special degree program that enables graduate students to take courses and earn degree credit in Data Analysis and Applied Statistics (M.A. DAAS degree). Shibaji was advised on the Statistics side by Dr. Srijan Sengupta. Shibaji is simultaneously a PhD candidate in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering supervised by Drs. Jo Baker and Mike Ruohoniemi and has several radar-related papers to his credit. (Photo credit: Uddipan Mukherjee)
Congratulations, Shibaji!

For students interested in doing scientific research in the atmospheric sciences, solar and space physics, engineering, social sciences, or computer sciences the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is holding an NCAR Explorer Series Student Opportunities event on Wednesday, November 18 from 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm (MT). During the event, a panel of educational program leads, an NCAR scientist, and a student internship participant will talk about internships, workshops, and fellowships for students in all stages of their academic careers, from undergraduate through early career.
Please note the registration link below and the request to register by the end of the day on Monday, November 16th : https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdzG7l3f7XCMgBK3nsfYkhFVuCEYDP6LYLnNacau8wJv8UQVw/viewform