The UEC is eager to engage with you. This is a message from outgoing UEC Chair Larry Berg.
UEC Ushers in New Leadership—My Last Message
This is my final “From the UEC Chair” message. As of January 1, 2019, I passed the mantle of UEC chair on to Sébastien Biraud from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California. I want to offer my congratulations to Sébastien and to all the newly elected members. You can learn more about the members of the UEC here.
Sébastien will write his first address next month. Meanwhile, before signing off, I wanted to share my thoughts with you on the progress the UEC made in 2018.
As I hope you are aware, the UEC is the official voice of the user community in its interactions with ARM management. But what we found is that there are still a lot of scientists and organizations that don’t know about ARM or the UEC.
One of our primary efforts over the past year was to increase opportunities for us to talk about ARM—and interact with users—at meetings in both the U.S. and abroad. This included hosting a networking lunch at the 2018 Joint ARM User Facility/Atmospheric System Research (ASR) Principal Investigators Meeting for those new to ARM/ASR. Following up on a request from the 2017 ARM Triennial Review committee, the UEC also focused on reaching out to scientists and organizations outside the ASR community.
An opportunity for the UEC was to describe—from the user perspective—how ARM is addressing or could address the Grand Challenges identified by the Biological and Environmental Research (BER) Advisory Committee (BERAC). The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) charged BERAC to look at how to advance capabilities within all BER and DOE Office of Science user facilities, and the UEC was solicited for input. That report was recently released.
The UEC gave suggestions on a three-year ARM translator vision plan. Translators are liaisons between the scientific community and ARM infrastructure staff members. They develop value-added products, or VAPs, from the direct output of ARM instruments.
Feedback from the UEC was given on the continual development of Data Discovery, ARM’s portal for accessing more than 25 years’ worth of data. A lot of work is going on right now to redesign Data Discovery, and the UEC’s feedback is an important part of that process.
We also worked with ARM Communications staff to create a video tutorial for the arm.gov website and an ongoing social media campaign to help new users learn key ARM acronyms.
Elections for UEC members occur every two years, and in August 2018, ARM sought nominations for new positions. You cast your votes, and elected eight new UEC members. They represent a set of science themes previously covered by members who rolled off after serving up to four years.
I am one of those members who rolled off. Please know what a privilege it has been to serve not only on the UEC, but to serve with an outstanding group of scientists who take their responsibility to represent you to ARM management seriously.
While I no longer serve on the UEC, I’m still passionate about ARM and open to your questions. You can reach me here. Or feel free to reach out to Sébastien or any member of the UEC. They truly want to represent you.
Larry Berg