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| Human Resources People – About Jennifer Kim, Ben Tanis and Jeanette Gardner | In this USRA Career Story, we welcome Jennifer Kim (replacing Cindy Ladd after her March retirement) as Compensation and Benefits Manager who has been working with USRA for about five months. We also congratulate Ben Tanis on his promotion during his fourth year with USRA and also welcome his first baby, Elle, born in June 2021. We also recognize Jeanette Gardner at the moment of a distinct number anniversary with her tenure at exactly 11 years and 11 months. Let’s learn more about some of the hard-working people in the Human Resources organization at different stages of their USRA careers.
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| Preventing and Responding to Diseases with Climate Forecasting | Mosquitoes are a common nuisance shared all over the world. For people in some parts of the world, mosquitoes can bring debilitating or sometimes deadly disease. Chikungunya is a virus spread to people by the bite of an infected mosquito and comprises two-thirds of top infectious disease threats to Department of Defense (DoD) personnel and global public health. Chikungunya contributes to the vectorborne disease burden of more than 700,000 deaths per year. The Global Chikungunya Mapping, Monitoring and Forecasting (CHIKRisk) dashboard is a machine-learning-enabled platform that ingests various NASA and NOAA Earth Observations to map current and future areas at risk to Chikungunya globally. Satellite observations of rainfall, land surface temperature, and soil moisture, and climate forecasts are combined with locations of Chikungunya vectors, historical outbreak locations, and human population density to generate risk forecast in a machine learning framework.
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| | Quantum Bootcamp | In June 2021, the Science Academy at the University of Maryland, College Park offered a three-week summer bootcamp on the fundamentals of quantum computing. USRA Senior Scientist, Quantum Information Sciences, Aaron Lott, participated in organizing and teaching this course in collaboration with scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the University of Maryland, College Park. The bootcamp was designed to provide foundational knowledge of quantum computing and quantum machine learning to working professionals and recent graduates with backgrounds in mathematics, physics, engineering and computer science. Over 20 students from across the US and people serving in a variety of government, academic and commercial roles participated in the bootcamp.
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| | Astronomers Revisiting Age of Westerlund 1 in the Milky Way Galaxy | A new study of Westerlund 1, a compact young super star cluster in the Milky Way galaxy, about 2.6 kpc (8480 light years) away from Earth, is challenging previously established theories of cluster formation and evolution.
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| | USRA Scientists Leading the Next Generation "Earth at Night" Research | USRA scientists at the Earth from Space Institute (EfSI) continue to lead the efforts in using satellite data for various applications and shaping the agenda for the future.
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| | Wildfires Creating Dangerous Fire-Induced Storms Result in Extreme Stratospheric Smoke Events | According to a recent study, scientists have found that wildfire-generated thunderstorms, known as pyrocumulonimbus (pyroCb) are even more damaging than previously thought. Lightning from these massive fire-triggered thunderstorms can not only spark additional blazes far away but they can also send plumes of smoke and aerosols into the stratosphere.
More on newsroom.usra.edu |
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