Meet The Team¶

Current Team Members¶

Photo	Biography
	Paul Stackhouse, Jr., Ph.D. Senior Research Scientist Dr. Stackhouse is a Senior Research Scientist at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia and leads the POWER team. He also leads the NASA/Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) Surface Radiation Budget (SRB) Project, and is a science team member of the Clouds and Earth Radiant Energy System (CERES) project and co-leads the FLASHFlux (Fast Longwave and Shortwave radiative Fluxes) working group. Both project produce radiative fluxes using satellite analysis and the latter produces low latency estimates of top-of-atmosphere and surface radiation data products from CERES. Both of the these data sets are key inputs to the POWER Web Suite. As lead for POWER, Dr. Stackhouse works to connect the physical parameters provide by NASA Earth Observations to the user community by working with leaders in the renewable energy, energy efficiency and agroclimatology fields. Thus, he leads the formulation for community requested parameters, reviews validation, assessments and documentation. Dr. Stackhouse completed his M.S. and Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences at Colorado State University in 1989 and 1995 respectively.
	Falguni Patadia, Ph.D. Research Physical Scientist Dr. Falguni Patadia is a Research Physical Scientist at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia and serves as the Deputy Project Manager for the Prediction Of Worldwide Energy Resources (POWER) project. Dr Patadia’s role involves assisting in POWER project management, future planning and communications. She provides scientific oversight for algorithm development and data validation activities of the project. She works on growing existing POWER collaborations and building new partnerships in the solar energy, green building, agricultural and climate research communities. Dr Patadia’s research experience includes aerosol retrievals from satellite observations with a focus on atmospheric corrections, developing methods for estimating aerosol retrieval uncertainty and mapping aerosol types over urban regions. Dr Patadia has also been studying the effect of atmospheric aerosols on Earth's radiation budget using MODIS, MISR and CERES satellite data. Dr Patadia completed Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences at The University of Alabama in Huntsville in 2010 and a Masters in Physics from D.A.V.V, India, in 2000.
	Taiping Zhang, Ph.D Senior Research Scientist Dr. Taiping Zhang has a Master of Science from Tianjin University (1987) and a Ph.D. from Yale University (2003). He has been working on the NASA GEWEX SRB and POWER projects since 2003 as a senior research scientist. His work focuses on 1) The quality control and processing of surface-based shortwave and longwave radiation measurements that include data from the BSRN, SurfRad, GEBA and WRDC archives; 2) Application of the surface-based data in validation of the satellite-based GEWEX SRB radiation data products and POWER SSE data products; 3) Climatological analysis of the GEWEX SRB data products; 4) Production of the direct normal irradiance for the POWER SSE using the DirIndex global-to-beam model with the GEWEX SRB global horizontal irradiance and other auxiliary data as inputs.
	A. Jason Barnett Geospatial & Technology Developer A. Jason Barnett is a geospatial and technology developer for the POWER Project team. He has a Masters of Agriculture from Iowa State University and was awarded a Bachelor of Science in Geography with an emphasis in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) from Old Dominion University along with a GIS certificate. He leads web, Python, cloud computing and data web services development support and assists with project management.
	Bradley Macpherson Geospatial & Technology Developer Bradley Macpherson is a geospatial and technology developer for the POWER Project team. He holds a Master's of Spatial Analysis from Ryerson University and a Bachelor of Science with dual majors in Geography and Earth Science with concentrations in Atmospheric Science, Physical Geology, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) from Salisbury University. He leads the development and sustainment of the Python-based POWER Application Programming Interface (API), web services, and Near Real Time (NRT) data processing.
	Colleen Mikovitz Research Scientist Colleen Mikovitz is a research scientist for the NASA POWER Project team. She has a master’s degree in meteorology from Pennsylvania State University and a Bachelor of Science in meteorology from Florida State University. Her main duties for this team are to validate the meteorological data sets against global surface observing sites.
	Madison Broddle Geospatial Data Analyst & Outreach Coordinator Madison Broddle is geospatial data analyst and outreach coordinator for the POWER Project Team. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Geographic Information Science as well as a B.A. in Environmental Sustainability: Sciences & Natural Resources from the University of Oklahoma. Madison develops communications strategies and outreach materials for the project, as well as helps to develop interactive map products and apps.
	Neha Khadka Research Scientist Neha Khadka is a Research Scientist for the NASA POWER Project team. She holds a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering with a specialization in Satellite Image Processing from South Dakota State University. Neha duties include measurement, analysis, manipulation and validation of surface meteorological parameters.
	Claire Baldacci Geospatial Data Scientist & Energy Analyst Claire Baldacci is geospatial data scientist and energy analyst serving as the Sustainable Infrastructure & Renewable Energy market sector lead on the NASA POWER Project Team. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Geographic Information Science (GIS) with a concentration in Environmental Sustainability, Energy, and Ecology from James Madison University and is currently completing her Master of Science in Geospatial Intelligence from Johns Hopkins University. Claire works closely with the sustainable infrastructure and renewable energy markets to understand user requirements, identify integration opportunities, develop partnerships, and enhance collaboration with community stakeholders.
	Christopher Higham Geospatial & Technology Developer Christopher Higham is a geospatial and technology developer for the POWER Project team. He has a Bachelor of Science of Geography degree from Brigham Young University with a concentration in Geospatial Science and Technology. Christopher supports the development and refinement of the POWER APIs and public facing use-case examples that utilize POWER APIs and POWER data.
	Brad Hegyi, Ph.D. Research Scientist Brad Hegyi is a research scientist for the NASA POWER Project team. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Synoptic Meteorology from Purdue University and a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science from Georgia Tech. His main duties for the POWER team include developing metrics and statistics from model estimates of future climate to help support planning for future energy use by HVAC systems in buildings.
	Zoe Waring Scientific and Technical Writer Zoe is a scientific and technical writer/editor for the NASA POWER Project team. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Scientific Writing from the College of William and Mary. Zoe uses her editorial and content writing knowledge to support the project team in various capacities.
	Valeria Green Front End Software Engineer Valeria Green is a front-end software engineer for the POWER Project team. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology with a concentration in Web Development and Multimedia and a minor in Computer Science from George Mason University. She provides front-end development support for multiple web mapping applications which include POWER’s Data Access Viewer Enhanced (DAVe) and PaRameter Uncertainty ViEwer (PRUVE).
	Ben Landes Geospatial and Technology Developer Ben Landes is a geospatial and technology developer for the POWER Project team. He holds a Master of Science in Business Analytics from the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce. Ben supports the development and sustainment of POWER’s data assessment and validation tool PRUVE as well as other statistical and data visualization efforts.
	Nikhil Aluru Data Scientist and Technology Developer Nikhil Aluru is a data scientist and technology developer for the POWER Project team. He holds a Bachelor of Arts with dual majors in Statistics and Computer Science from the University of Virginia and is a certified AWS Cloud Practitioner. He supports the Python-based data processing framework to enable the efficient access to POWER data products. This framework facilitates cloud-optimized Near Real Time (NRT) data distribution through POWER’s Services Suite.

Former Team Members¶

Photo	Biography
	James M. Hoell Senior Atmospheric Scientist James Hoell was a Senior Atmospheric Scientist on the NASA Prediction of Worldwide Energy Resource (POWER) Project with responsibilities for defining and documenting meteorological and solar parameters of interest to the agricultural and ASHRAE user communities.
	Tyler Bristow Geospatial Developer Tyler Bristow was a geospatial developer for the POWER Project team. He is a certified GIS professional and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Geography with an emphasis in Geospatial and Environmental Analysis from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He supports POWER GIS application design and development efforts. His professional interests include remote sensing and mobile software development.
	David Westberg Staff Researcher David Westberg was a staff researcher for the NASA POWER Project team. He has Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. His main duties are to validate the meteorological data sets against global surface observing sites, as well as provide ways to improve the quality of the data sets. He also acts as a liaison between the NASA POWER Project team and the ASHRAE Technical Committee - 4.2, which is in charge of the 'Climatic Design Information' chapter of the ASHRAE Handbook of Fundamentals produced every 4 years.
	Bill Chandler Senior Atmospheric Scientist Bill Chandler was a Senior Atmospheric Scientist and the lead software developer of the Solar meteorology and Solar Energy website (SSE) that was a precursor to the current POWER web site to which he also contributed. He contributed numerous papers and talks discussing the data services provided to the solar energy and agroclimatology communities. Sadly, he passed away in 2017.
	Charles Whitlock Senior Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Charles Whitlock was the original leader of the Surface meteorology and Solar Energy project (SSE) that was the precursor to the current POWER web site. Dr. Whitlock also served to lead the NASA Langley Surface Radiation Budget project which was utilized for the first SSE data products provided to the public. After his retirement from NASA he continued to work and contribute to the theoretical development of many of the value added data products that POWER still features today. Sadly, Dr. Whitlock passed away in 2018.
	Chequel McNeil Front End Software Engineer Chequel McNeil was a front end software engineer for the POWER Project team. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering from Old Dominion University. He provided front-end development for POWER Data Access Viewer (DAV).