The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)’s Cooperative Program for the Advancement of Earth System Science (CPAESS) and NOAA’s Weather Program Office are pleased to welcome the second class of the Weather Program Office (WPO) Innovation for Next Generation Scientists (WINGS) Dissertation Fellowship of 2025-2027.
The purpose of this fellowship is to help PhD students gain real-world, doctoral experience applying expertise in their field of study to weather model development with the Earth Prediction Innovation Center (EPIC) and Joint Transfer Technology Initiative (JTTI) programs. The WINGS Fellowship will develop and foster the next generation of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) scholars, with the goal of bolstering the future workforce of America’s Weather Enterprise.
The WINGS Fellowship is designed for PhD candidates who have completed their required coursework and are in the beginning stages of writing a dissertation. Fellows will work with their academic advisor and a mentor recommended by WPO and CPAESS to provide guidance during the dissertation process. The focus of this Fellowship is on research relevant to the NOAA WPO’s Earth Prediction Innovation Center (EPIC) and Joint Transfer Technology Initiative (JTTI) programs. This focus will serve as a catalyst for community research and modeling system advances that continually inform and accelerate improvements in the Unified Forecast System (UFS), spanning local to global domains and predictive timescales from sub-hourly analyses to seasonal predictions.
The WINGS Dissertation Fellowship will be awarded for two years with a potential extension if approved. The WINGS Dissertation Fellowship is sponsored by NOAA’s Weather Program Office and managed by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)’s Cooperative Program for the Advancement of Earth System Science (CPAESS).
The WINGS program will enable Fellows to gain insights into their respective fields of study, support the Fellows’ integration into the workforce, and offer a unique opportunity to contribute to forecast model development. Potential topics for the Fellowship this year will focus on one or more areas of scientific and/or technical importance shared by UCAR, EPIC, and JTTI, including:
- Data Assimilation
- Atmospheric Physics
- Systems Architecture (coupling, workflow, continuous integration and development)
- Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence
- Software Engineering to advance numerical weather prediction
A sincere congratulations to our new Fellows!
Written May 13, 2025 by: Dawn Mullally, UCAR | CPAESS
Learn About
Our Awardees
Elena Fernandez
PhD Advisor and Institution: Andrea Lopez Lang; and Zheng Wu, University at Albany,
SUNY Proposal Title: Implementing Machine Learning to Resolve Troposphere-Stratosphere Coupling and Teleconnections in S2S Forecasts
Research Alignment: EPIC
Luke Howard
PhD Advisor and Institution: Aneesh Subramanian, University of Colorado, Boulder
Proposal Title: Improved Utilization of Dense Observations in Data Assimilation Systems Using Machine Learning
Research Alignment: JTTI
Kaitlin Pereira
PhD Advisor and Institution: Eric Anderson, Colorado School of Mines
Proposal Title: Improvement of Lake Representation in Operational Weather Forecasting
Research Alignment: EPIC