A Personal Perspective on Professor Daniel Keyser’s Lasting Scientific, Intellectual, and Educational Contributions to the Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences at the University of Albany/SUNY

A Personal Perspective on Professor Daniel Keyser’s Lasting Scientific, Intellectual, and Educational Contributions to the Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences at the University of Albany/SUNY

This presentation will focus on Dan Keyser’s critical leadership role in establishing the CSTAR (Collaborative Science Technology and Applied Research) program between the Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences (DAES) at the University at Albany and the National Weather Service Forecast Office (WFO) in Albany, NY in the late 1990s. Dan, along with Albany NWS WFO-Albany meteorologist-in-charge Gene Auciello, and Lance Bosart crafted the UAlbany CSTAR program that continues today under the outstanding leadership of Professor Kristen Corbosiero. The UAlbany CSTAR program would never have gotten off the ground without Dan’s critical leadership role and his dedicated efforts to craft a research program that would combine academic rigor with a deep appreciation of the fundamental scientific principles that underly modern weather analysis and forecasting procedures as employed at NWS WFOs. The UAlbany CSTAR program was governed by the need to transition research to operations by bringing a better understanding of fundamental synoptic-dynamic meteorology scientific principles and modern technologies into the NWS weather analysis and forecasting process. Examples of how the UAlbany and WFO-Albany CSTAR program accomplished this goal will be presented.