Exceptionally good news! Our department will be receiving a Good-to-Great Grant from the Office of Academic Affairs Provost Melissa Gilliam’s office. To the tune of $1,750,000—to purchase and maintain a mobile weather radar system.

The Good-to-Great competition was exceptionally competitive. Units across campus have been jockeying for position for months on this.

Jana Houser is the chief architect of the proposal. She had the vision, she saw the opportunity for research and teaching and community outreach, she developed the proposal, and she built partnerships with stakeholders in Engineering. This is Jana’s success. Congratulations, Jana!

As I wrote to deans Horn and King this morning, this will re-center meteorology and atmospheric sciences research on Ohio State, and on our department, within and beyond the Big Ten.  It’s a buzzword, but this is a truly ‘transformational’ moment.

Geography’s successful Good-to-Great grant will fund the acquisition of a mobile weather radar system. The truck-mounted mobile radar will be available to both faculty and students for meteorology-related field research, as an experiential learning educational tool for both Geography and our partner unit, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (https://ece.osu.edu/), as a resource for the National Weather Service during times of regionally extreme or dangerous weather, as a platform for technology advancement and demonstration, and as a public outreach/visibility tool.