About the NDMC

Staff

Karin Callahan, GIS/Remote Sensing Specialist
phone: (402) 472-7556
e-mail: kcallahan@calmit.unl.edu

Karin joined the NDMC in 2007 as a GIS /remote sensing specialist supporting research in developing drought monitoring and prediction tools. Before coming to Lincoln, Karin served as the GIS coordinator for the Playa Lakes Joint Venture (PLJV), a member of the Great Plains GIS Partnership. Her work there centered on habitat modeling in the central and southern Great Plains in support of PLJV’s regional bird conservation planning efforts. She has also worked in the Southeast’s forestry industry as a remote sensing specialist.

Education:
• M.S. in 2002 in geography with a specialization in GIS and remote sensing from Utah State University.
• B.A. in 1997 in geology with a minor in cartography from Kent State University.

Ben Chavet, System Administrator
phone: (402) 472-4364
email: bchavet3@unl.edu

Ya Ding, Economist
phone: (402) 472-6740
e-mail: yding2@unl.edu
vita: long

Dr. Ding joined the NDMC in 2006. Her responsibilities include the development of a methodology to quantify the economic impacts of drought and the construction of decision-support tools for decision makers such as agricultural producers, natural resources managers, and policy makers to reduce the risk associated with drought.

Education:
• Ph.D. in 2005 in agricultural economics from Kansas State University.
• B.A. in 1999 in international trade from Renmin University of China, Beijing.

Ann Fiedler, Administrative Assistant
phone: (402) 472-6707
e-mail: afiedler2@unl.edu

Ms. Fiedler joined the National Drought Mitigation Center on a part-time basis in July 2000 and full-time in January 2004. She has more than 20 years of experience in secretarial and office support positions. Responsibilities include providing clerical support; routing telephone inquiries; maintaining mailing lists, publication and library files, and drought planning contact lists; and assisting with organization of workshops and meetings.

Brian Fuchs, Climatologist
phone: (402) 472-6775
e-mail: bfuchs2@unl.edu

Brian joined the NDMC in 2005. Before coming to the NDMC, he worked for 5 years for the High Plains Regional Climate Center as a regional climatologist. Brian worked extensively with weather/climate data during this time. He worked extensively on development of the ACIS (Applied Climate Information System) and applied data products.

Brian’s responsibilities with the NDMC include working as a climatologist for the center, with various duties related to this position. Brian participates with other NDMC staff in the production of the U.S. Drought Monitor, and he serves as a media contact for climate- and drought-related topics.

Education:
• M.S. in 2000 in geosciences with a specialization in climatology from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Thesis examined the diurnal variations of winter precipitation events in the Central Plains.
• B.S. in 1997 in geography with a major in meteorology/climatology from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Denise D. Gutzmer, Drought Impact Reporter Moderator
phone: (402) 472-6726
e-mail: dgutzmer2@unl.edu

Denise joined the NDMC team in August 2006.  Her responsibilities include documenting drought impacts throughout the country in the Drought Impact Reporter. 

Education:
• M.S. in natural resource sciences with a specialization in climate assessment and impacts from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln in 2006.
• B.S. in meteorology with minors in physics and German from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln in 2004.

Dr. Cody L. Knutson, Water Resources Scientist
phone: (402) 472-6718
e-mail: cknutson1@unl.edu
vita: long

Dr. Knutson originally served as a Water Resources Specialist with the NDMC for three years beginning in May 1997. After a two-year break to complete his doctoral coursework, he rejoined the NDMC in November 2002. In addition to his work with the NDMC, Dr. Knutson has previously been employed by, and consulted for, private and public agencies, including development consulting firms, mining companies, the USDA–Black Hills National Forest, and the Department of the Interior–U.S. Geological Survey.

Dr. Knutson serves as the NDMC’s social scientist, developing information about the human component of drought planning, and as a water resources scientist, providing relevant technical and research support for a variety of other NDMC activities. Specialties include: drought risk analysis, human dimensions, and water resources policy.

Education:
• Ph.D. in 2004 from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in geography with applied, human, and environmental specializations. Dissertation: Rural Water Development in Marginal Regions: A Case Study of South Dakota’s Mni Wiconi Rural Water Supply System.
• Certification in Public Policy Analysis and Program Evaluation in 2001 from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln Political Science Department.
• M.A. in 1997 from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in anthropology, specializing in applied/development anthropology.
• M.S. in 1996 from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in geological engineering, specializing in water resources and environmental quality.
• B.S. in 1993 from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in geological engineering, specializing in ground water.

Jun Li, Programmer
phone: (402) 472-9180
e-mail: jli4@unl.edu

Jun joined the NDMC in 2006. Jun’s responsibilities with the NDMC include developing software tools based on ACIS (Applied Climate Information System) to create spatial products such as SPI and PDSI automatically, providing customized spatial products to meet specific requirements of the climatologists at the NDMC, and other programming tasks.

Education:
• M.S. in 2003 in Computer Science from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
•B.S. in 1992 in Environmental Science from Nankai University, Tianjin, China.

Mark A. Mesarch, Web Designer and Programmer
phone: (402) 472-5904
e-mail: mmesarch1@unl.edu

Mark joined the staff in the Spring of 2006. He currently is the webmaster for the Nebraska Forest Service, the Applied Climate Sciences Program (ACS)of the School of Natural Resources at UNL and the Lincoln Civic Choir He specializes in database connections to websites, database management and structure. Mark also is the site supervisor for the National Atmostpheric Deposition Program (NRSP-3) for Eastern Nebraska (both wet deposition and mercury) and the field manager for the Remote Sensing group of ACS.

Education:
M.S. in Agronomy in 2003 from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Thesis involved measuring and modeling heat and moisture stress reduction in corn canopies by short-term irrigation events.
B.S. in Meteorology (with Distinction) in 1983 from The Pennsylvania State University.

Jae Ryu, P.E., Hydrologist/Climate Management Specialist
phone: (402) 472-1483
e-mail: jryu2@unl.edu
vita: long

Dr. Ryu is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, American Geographic Union, and American Water Resources Association.

Education:
• Ph.D. in 2006 in civil and environmental engineering from the University of Washington. Dissertation: The Management of Water Resources Using a Mid-Range Climate Forecast Model.
• M.S. in 2001 in civil and environmental engineering from the University of Washington.
• M.S. in 1998 in agricultural engineering from Konkuk University, Seoul, Korea.
• B.S. in 1996 in agricultural engineering from Konkuk University, Seoul, Korea.

Soren Scott, GIS Specialist
phone: (402) 472-6717
e-mail: sscott5@unl.edu

Soren joined the NDMC in 2006. Before coming to the NDMC, she worked for 4 years at the University of Arizona. She worked extensively on a joint project (AGWA: the Automated Geospatial Watershed Assessment tool) between the University, the USDA Agricultural Research Service, and the US EPA creating a GIS-based watershed modeling application.

Education:
• M.S. in 2005 in natural resources studies from the University of Arizona. Thesis involved the development and verification of several watershed modeling components for AGWA.
• B.F.A. in 2000 in studio art with an emphasis on printmaking and visual communications from the University of Arizona.

Kelly Smith, Science Communicator
phone: (402) 472-3373
e-mail: ksmith2@unl.edu

Ms. Smith rejoined the NDMC in 2006, hoping to help scientists and policy makers work together to improve living conditions around the world. She spent the intervening years working with Lincoln’s Sudanese refugee and African immigrant populations on behalf of various non-profit and faith-based organizations, and earning a degree in Community & Regional Planning. Ms. Smith also has a background in journalism. Before serving the NDMC as a science communicator from 1994 to 2000, she worked as a newspaper reporter and in corporate public relations.

Education:
• M.C.R.P. in 2005 in Community & Regional Planning from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
• M.S.J. in 1985 from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.
• B.A. in 1984 in history, minor in French, from Bryn Mawr College.

Meghan Sittler, Research and Outreach Specialist
phone: (402) 472-2712
e-mail: msittler2@unl.edu

Meghan joined the NDMC in 2006. Before joining the NDMC, Meghan worked as an environmental educator for the Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department, as the academic adviser for the UNL Environmental Studies Program, and as an archeological technician for the National Park Service Midwest Archeological Center. Meghan served as co-principal investigator for a US Environmental Protection Agency grant to collaboratively develop adaptive management projects, plans, and policies through facilitating workshops and discussions with stakeholders in the Missouri River Ecosystem. Her lifelong ties with her family’s southeast Nebraska farm and her background in natural resources, planning, policy, and anthropology have resulted in her desire to increase our collective understanding of critical natural resource and societal issues through developing successful communication and collaborations with the public, scientists. and policy makers. Meghan also focuses her efforts on K-12 education and outreach and is currently the co-chair of the earth wellness festival.

Education:
• M.S. in Natural Resources in 2003 from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln; minors in: Environmental Planning and Political Science. Graduate Certificate in Public Policy Analysis. Graduate project: “Democratizing Science, Management, and Public Policy in the Missouri River Ecosystem: A Pilot Study of Agricultural Producers’ Amenability to Adaptive and Collaborative Management.”
• B.A. in Environmental Studies and Anthropology in 2000 from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Undergraduate thesis worked centered on the paleoenvironmental reconstruction of an archeological site in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Mark Svoboda, Climatologist
phone: (402) 472-8238
e-mail: msvoboda2@unl.edu
vita: long or short

Before joining the NDMC in June 1995, Mr. Svoboda worked for two years with the Midwest National Technical Center of the USDA–Soil Conservation Service in Lincoln as a GIS/Climate Specialist. He served as regional coordinator for the center’s Global Positioning Systems program, and worked extensively on agro-climatic modeling.

Responsibilities with the NDMC include providing expertise on climate and water management issues, working closely with state and federal agencies as well as the private sector, providing technical support for applied research projects, and developing data products to meet users’ needs. He also helps with the NDMC’s home page development and maintains the NDMC’s drought monitoring activities.

Education
• M.A. in 1992 in geography with remote sensing, climatology, and GIS specialization from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Thesis examined the relationships between AVHRR satellite imagery and vegetative response to rainfall, using the normalized difference vegetation index.
• B.S. in 1989 in geography with a specialization in climatology and a minor in meteorology–climatology.

Dr. Tsegaye Tadesse, Climatologist
phone: (402) 472-3383
e-mail: ttadesse2@unl.edu
vita: long

Dr. Tadesse joined the NDMC in August 1998 as a graduate research assistant pursuing his Ph.D. at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. From July 2002 to May 2005, he served as a research associate in a collaborative research project, “Drought monitoring through integration of satellite and climate data”, with the National Center for Earth Resources Observation & Science (EROS) in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Dr Tadesse has served as a climatologist at the rank of Assistant Geoscientist (faculty position) with the NDMC since June 2005. His responsibilities include establishing a research program on the development of drought monitoring tools in support of other monitoring activities of the NDMC and other collaborating organizations using satellite- and climate-based data and employing data mining techniques as appropriate; collaborating with NDMC faculty and staff and scientists at other institutions in the conduct of research on the drought climatology of Nebraska, the region, and the nation; and playing a significant role in conducting scientific research to help educate students and the public about drought management and planning issues. His research interests include identifying drought characteristics and their association with satellite and oceanic indices using data mining techniques.

Education
• Ph.D. in 2002 from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in agronomy, specializing in agricultural meteorology and data mining techniques. Dissertation: Identifying Drought and Its Associations with Climatic and Oceanic Parameters Using Data Mining Techniques.
• M.S. in 1998 from the International Space University, Strasbourg (France), in space studies, specializing in remote sensing application to drought.
• B.S. in 1982 from Addis Ababa University (Ethiopia) in physics.

Dr. Brian Wardlow, Remote Sensing Specialist
phone: (402) 472–6729
e-mail: bwardlow2@unl.edu
vita: long

Dr. Wardlow joined the NDMC in 2006 as a remote sensing specialist. His responsibilities include developing drought monitoring tools through the integration of remote sensing, climate, and biophysical datasets; investigating the use of new remote sensing datasets and data mining techniques for drought monitoring and land cover characterization; helping to organize and conduct workshops and conferences; writing technical reports related to the NDMC’s drought monitoring products; and collaborating with researchers and scientists at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and other academic institutions as well as at various state and federal agencies to develop new drought monitoring applications using geospatial technologies.

Before joining the NDMC, Dr. Wardlow served as a NASA Earth System Science Graduate Research Fellow at the Kansas Applied Remote Sensing (KARS) program. While at KARS, his Ph.D. dissertation research focused on the development of regional-scale crop mapping and monitoring protocol for the U.S. Central Great Plains using time-series MODIS 250-meter vegetation index data. Dr. Wardlow also worked as a remote sensing scientist for the National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD) program at the U.S. Geological Survey’s EROS Data Center. His specific research interests include land use/land cover mapping and monitoring, climate-vegetation interactions, biogeography, and remote sensing/GIS applications for agriculture and natural resource management and assessment.

Education:
• Ph.D. in 2005 in geography from the University of Kansas, specializing in remote sensing and plant ecology. Dissertation: An Evaluation of Time-Series MODIS 250-Meter Vegetation Index Data for Crop Mapping in the U.S. Central Great Plains.
• M.A. in 1996 in geography from Kansas State University, specializing in remote sensing and GIS. Thesis: Temporal Monitoring of Suspended Sediment Patterns Using Landsat Thematic Mapper Imagery—A Study of Tuttle Creek Reservoir, Kansas.
• B.S. in 1996 in geography and geology from Northwest Missouri State University, specializing in environmental geography and geology.

Deborah Wood, Publications Specialist
phone: (402) 472-6705
e-mail: dwood1@unl.edu

Ms. Wood joined the Department of Agricultural Meteorology at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 1981 as a project research assistant, with responsibilities including editing and library research. Ms. Wood provides editing, graphics, and design support for the NDMC. She has been with the International Drought Information Center since 1988, with responsibilities including editing, layout, and design of Drought Network News, conference proceedings, and other publications; creating graphics for various presentations and publications; and editing various materials. Other responsibilities include redesigning and reorganizing the NDMC’s website.

Education
• M.A. in 1980 in history from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
• B.A. in 1978 in history from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Donna Woudenberg, Drought Management Specialist
phone: (402) 472-8287
e-mail: dwoudenberg2@unl.edu

Dr. Woudenberg joined the NDMC in January 2007. Her interests are meteorology and climatology, sociology, psychology, and anthropology (particularly as related to women, children, and minorities), and she has a strong interest in interdisciplinary research. Dr. Woudenberg is currently assisting in social, economic, and environmental drought impact-related NDMC research at local, state, national, and international levels. She has been working with UNL faculty to create new interdisciplinary coursework and will co-teach a new course of her design, “Gender and Cultural Perspectives on the Environment,” during the fall 2007 semester. Dr. Woudenberg is involved in preliminary discussion on the development of an interdisciplinary climate change course designed for the non-major, slated to be offered during the spring 2008 semester. She is also interested in public education and outreach, and is integrally involved in the development of several K-12 educational publications and outreach projects related to Nebraska’s water resources and to climate, climate variability, and climate change.

Education
• Ph.D. in 2006 in natural resources, with a human dimensions specialization, from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (first person from UNL to receive that specialization).
• M.S. in 2002 in natural resources, with a climatology focus, from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
• B.S. in 2000 in natural resources, with an environmental studies major, from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Bo Zhang, Data Mining Specialist
Phone: (402) 472-8293
e-mail: bzhang3@unl.edu

Bo Zhang joined the staff of NDMC in October 2007. He is working on developing and investigating new data mining algorithms that can be integrated into new drought monitoring tools and approaches. He will also be designing and implementing an SQL database system to more effectively manage and analyze the large volumes of climate, oceanic, and satellite data used in various NDMC projects.  This will allow the NDMC to better utilize a vast array of information for a wide range of drought monitoring, planning, and mitigation activities.

Bo’s technical expertise will aid the NDMC’s exploration of complex ocean-climate-vegetation interactions and help it develop more effective drought monitoring and prediction tools. 

Bo expects to complete a PhD in Environmental Science from Ohio State University in March 2008. His topic is "Statistics, GIS and Remote Sensing in Exploration of Changes of Prairie Potholes by Climatic Variability."

Education

• Master of Applied Statistics, December 2006, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
• Master of Science, Institute of Nuclear Energy, June 2002, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
• Bachelor of Science, Environmental Engineering, June 2000, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

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