Catching up with Stephen Guimond

Stephen Guimond, who has joined GESTAR II from JCET, is a Research Associate Professor with the Physics Department at UMBC and directs the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics (GFD) Group here. Dr. Guimond (UMBC/612) recently had a paper published and a proposal selected. He was the second author on an article led by Gennaro D'Angelo of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), "Contrasting stratospheric smoke mass and lifetime from 2017 Canadian and 2019/2020 Australian megafires: Global simulations and satellite observations," published in J. Geophys. Res. - Atmos., https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JD036249.

Dr. Guimond also is part of an NASA AIST proposal that was selected for funding: "GEOS Visualization And Lagrangian dynamics Immersive eXtended Reality Tool (VALIXR) for Scientific Discovery." According to the proposal team, "Traditionally, scientists view and analyze the results of calculated or measured observables with static 1-dimensional (1-D), 2-D or 3-D plots. In this context, it is very difficult to identify, track and understand the evolution of key features due to poor viewing angles and the nature of flat computer screens. In addition, numerical models, such as the NASA Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) climate/weather model, are almost exclusively formulated and analyzed in an Eulerian reference frame with fixed grid points in space and time. However, Earth Science phenomena, such as convective clouds, hurricanes and wildfire smoke plumes, move with the 3-D flow field in a Lagrangian reference frame, and it is often difficult and unnatural to understand these phenomena with data in an Eulerian context." Dr. Guimond added, "This AIST project, VALIXR, will develop a scientific exploration and analysis mixed augmented and virtual reality tool with integrated Lagrangian Dynamics (LD) to provide more in-depth science with the NASA GEOS model." He will be responsible for portions of the LD tool and understanding the value for wildfire smoke plume science.

The VALIXR proposal team consists of PI: Thomas Grubb GSFC/587), Co-Is: Thomas Clune (GSFC/610.1), Steve Guimond, Matthias Zwicker (UMD), Leslie Lait (SSAI/614), and Ruth West (UNT), plus Collaborators: Roger Eastman (UMD) and Don Engel (UMBC/672).