12th Conference on Transition of Research to Operations

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The 12th Conference on the Transition of Research to Operations is sponsored by the American Meteorological Society and organized by the Board on Environmental Information Processing Technologies

The rate of meaningful research results in the Weather, Water and Climate disciplines and enterprises has been steadily increasing, especially in this era of “big data” and disruptive new technologies. One of the grand challenges for these enterprises is to find which of these meaningful research results can, and the ways and means to, transition these results to operations and applications [R2O] using efficient and cost-effective techniques and technologies. R2O can provide those critical links in the transition chain of vast information to usable knowledge. The 12R2O Conference will support  extending the chain from R2O to Research-to-Services [R2S] (societal benefits) and the indispensable Services-to-Research [S2R] feedback process. These enabling capabilities directly support the overall theme for this 2022 AMS Centennial Annual Meeting – “Environment Security: weather, water and climate for a more secure world”.

The 12R2O Conference will continue to build on the previous year’s AMS theme, “Strengthening engagement with communities through our science and services”. This 12R2O Conference will demonstrate how traditional and non-traditional observations, modeling and instrumentation are identified and validated for past, present, and future advances in research, technology and applications that drive transitions to meaningful operations in order to achieve and sustain environmental security for a more secure world. 12R2O is seeking papers describing recent advances in research, technology and applications that will support the Nation’s ability to provide more accurate weather, water, and climate information to decision makers and end users around the world.  In addition, the 12R2O Conference supports the national and international imperatives for the effective and efficient transition of research into sustained operations and the feedback process of operations back to research.

Call for Papers

The 12R2O Conference is inviting oral and poster presentations for the following Session Topics:

  • Advances in CubeSats and SmallSats for Observations and Measurements of Earth Atmosphere Thermodynamic Structure and Processes, Winds, and Water Cycle Processes, and to Improve Climate Monitoring,  Weather Forecasting, or Space Weather Prediction
  • Advances in Satellite Observations, Earth Science, and Observing Technologies that can complement the Heritage Observation Systems and potentially lead to Advances in Next Generation Observation Systems
  • Emerging Technologies for Earth or Space Sciences to Address Unmet, Targeted Needs/Requirements in the Research or Operational Communities
  • R2O Progress in GNSS Radio Occultations and Reflectometry for NWP, Ionospheric Studies-Prediction and Ocean Surface Properties
  • Advances in R2O & O2R in Analysis and Short-Term Forecast Range Forecasting that Link Research and Operations to Forecasters’ Needs
  • Special Session: The UFS-R2O Project: Advancing NOAA’s Unified Forecast System [UFS] as a Collaborative Community-Based Modeling System for Research and Operations    
  • Joint Special Sessions on EPIC: The Earth Prediction Innovation Center to Accelerate Community Developed Scientific and Technological Enhancements into the Operational Applications for Numerical Weather Prediction
  • Testbeds and Testing & Evaluation to Enable & Accelerate the Transition of Research to Operations to Decision Makers, End Users and the Public in Weather, Water or Climate Applications: Advanced Modeling, Data Assimilation, and Physics Development
  • Facilitating Hurricane R2O: NOAA Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program
  • Service-to-Research [S2R]: Using User Engagement Information to Improve NOAA Research, Products and Services: Panel Discussion [Invited Presentations Only]
  • Service-to-Research [S2R]: User needs to inform NOAA’s Research and Service Delivery. Challenges, Opportunity, and Best Practices
  • Special Topics in Research to Operations: a.) Building Successful R2X Collaborations: Understanding Collaboration Challenges, Opportunities, and Successes. b.) Knowledge is Power: Highlighting Knowledge Transfer in NOAA’s Transition Practices, Processes, and Policies c.) Transitioning FROM Research to Operations TO Research AND Operations 
  • Natural Language Processing Machine Learning in the Weather Enterprise
  •  A Joint Effort to Improve Subseasonal-to-Seasonal [S2S] Prediction
  • Advances in Sea Ice Science and Applications for Operational Ice Service Services
  • Significant Roles of Calibration/Validation and Verification in the Transition of Research to Operations to Provide the Science-to-Operations-to-Societal Benefits
  • Public Private Partnerships; Best Practices & Multi-Community Efforts for the Transition of R2O in the Weather, Water and Climate Enterprises: Panel Discussion [Invited Presentations Only]
  • Student Research and Applications Enabling or Demonstrating the Transition of Research to Operations

Joint Sessions

  • Advances in CubeSats and SmallSats for Observations and Measurements of Earth Atmosphere Thermodynamic Structure and Processes, Winds, and Water Cycle Processes, and to Improve Climate Monitoring,  Weather Forecasting, or Space Weather Prediction
    (Joint between the 12th Conference on Transition of Research to Operations; the 18th Annual Symposium on Operational Environmental Satellite Systems; and the Fifth Conference on Earth Observing SmallSats).
  • Joint Special Sessions on EPIC: The Earth Prediction Innovation Center to Accelerate Community-Developed Scientific and Technological Enhancements into the Operational Applications for Numerical Weather Prediction
    (Joint between the First Symposium on Earth Prediction Innovation and Community Modeling; and the 12th Conference on Transition of Research to Operations).
  • National and International Program Overviews for Environmental Satellites (Invited) (Joint between the 18th Annual Symposium on Operational Environmental Satellite Systems; the 12th Conference on Transition of Research to Operations;  10th AMS Symposium on the Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation; and the Fifth Conference on Earth Observing SmallSats).
  • Advances in the Unified Modeling Framework (e.g. R2O, High Performance Computing  [HPC]
    (Joint between the 31st Conference on Weather Analysis and Forecasting /27th Conference on Numerical Weather Prediction;  and the 12th Conference on Transition of Research to Operations)
  • The Research to Operations Nexus (RON):Panel Discussion
    (Joint between the 31st Conference on Weather Analysis and Forecasting /27th Conference on Numerical Weather Prediction;  and the 12th Conference on Transition of Research to Operations)

Student Award Opportunities

Student Award Opportunities

The 12th Conference on the Transition of Research to Operations and the  18th Annual Symposium on Operational Environmental Satellite Systems are pleased to co-host Student Presentation Awards at the AMS Centennial Annual Meeting. Award certificates and cash prizes will be given for the best Student oral and poster presentations. Students who wish to be considered for these awards should indicate so when submitting their abstract. In order to be considered for an award, the Student must be the lead and presenting author.
The basis for an award will be:
          a.) Originality of the work,
          b.) Quality of the presentation (oral and poster/slides) and the Student’s delivery.

Student and Early Career Professionals Event

The 12th Conference on Transition of Research to Operations will be co-hosting with other Conferences and Symposia the 8th Annual Speed Networking Event [8SPNE]. The Event allows students and early career professionals to network with mentors via “speed networking” where the mentors (meteorology and allied discipline professionals) roam between tables at set intervals introducing the students and early professionals to a wide array of professions in the field of meteorology. The speed networking will include a social with light hors d'oeuvres, providing a great time for open networking. This allows the students, the early career professionals, and the mentors of their selected discipline to have extended conversations after their speed-mentoring.

Conference Contacts

For additional information, please contact the program chairs: 
Martin Yapur ([email protected]), Robert Bauer ([email protected]),
Eric Fetzer ([email protected]), Young-Joon Kim ([email protected]),
Chandra Kondragunta ([email protected]),
Mark Middlebusher ([email protected]), Eric Miller ([email protected]),
John Pereira ([email protected]), Vijay Tallapragada ([email protected]),
Thanh Vo Dinh ([email protected]),  and Stephen Mango ([email protected])