NOAA-CREST Day 2010

Posted on April 22, 2010

As it has always been the tradition at CREST for the past eight years — the 9th Annual NOAA-CREST Day was also celebrated with the same zeal and enthusiasm on April 21, 2010. About 300 participants including high school & college students; several invited guests; and CREST family members attended the event. It was a day full of informative events and activities mostly for our young audiences/students from all across the five boroughs of the NY metropolitan region.

More than 200 High School students attended the event this year and gained knowledge on various opportunities that CREST offers to incoming students as they get ready to enter in their college lives. This is by-large one of the most important and major recruitment event for NOAA- CREST.

The day began with poster session in the lobby by our students from CCNY, LaGCC and Bronx High School of Sciences. The events in the auditorium began with the welcome remarks by the CCNY President, Dr. Robert Paaswell and several enlightening presentations by our invited guest speakers; HS students; CREST faculty members and the students. Ms. Mary Kicza spoke on the broader perspective on sciences and services that NOAA offers to the American people and the society both at national and international level, and she also described various opportunities that are available at NOAA for all students who wish to build their career as a NOAA professional. Dr. Jingli Yang, CEO of Environmental Research Technologies ERT spoke on the industrial perspective. ERT is the latest industrial partner to join the NOAA-CREST consortium. Dr. Yang’s talk emphasized the growing demand for environmental engineers in general and in particular discussed the growing opportunities in both active and passive remote sensing. Dr. Franco Einaudi (Former NASA / NOAA scientist) gave an inspiring talk on the incredible progress made in remote sensing from the early days of TIROS and single VIS photography through present day hyper-spectral imagers.

Martin Yapur, a CREST Alumnus and currently a NOAA Scientist presented on his career growth from CCNY to NOAA and also motivated the students to follow the same path as he did.

Some exciting talks by the students from Bronx High School of Sciences on their recent experiences as National Ocean Science Bowl 2nd runner was unanimously liked by all our young audiences. Gary Bouton (Undergraduate) and Lilybeth Colon-Perez (Graduate) from CREST also presented on their research work and their experiences as CREST scholars. Dr. Fred Moshary spoke on various fellowship opportunities that are available for students through CREST and its affiliated program and also spoke about various internship opportunities available at NOAA’s Educational Partnership Program, while Dr. Barry Gross gave an overview on the CREST research and thematic areas.

Other invited guests who attended the event included; Dr. Alfred Powell, NESDIS/STAR; Dr. Priti Brahma of NOAA/EPP; Ms. Nina Jackson, NOAA/NESDIS; Dr. Patrick McCormick, Hampton University; Dr. Raymond Hof, University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Dr. Hamed Parsiani, University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez; and Dr. William Lawrence, Bowie State University, MD.

Other attractions of the event were the raffles drawings and the felicitation of the Bronx High School of Science NOSB team members for their excellent performance at the Regional Competition, held on March 6, 2010 at the Stony Brook University, NY.

The CREST Students Association [CSA] also conducted an “ECO-RACE Challenge” for our HS students in honor of the EARTH DAY week. Several quizzes pertaining to Eco-Friendly Lives; Environment and Conservation were given out to the participating students from Bronx High School of Sciences, and the winners were given eco-friendly prizes as a take-home messages on Eco-Friendly living. The winners of the Eco-race Challenge were: Kezi Cheng, fourth place; Carissa Ho, third place; Brandom Sim, second place; and Eric Blum, first place.

As a result of this successful recruitment and open house event, several HS students have applied for our CREST—HS Summer Internship [SHIP] program, and we look forward to their active participation in this summer enrichment program and a fruitful summer 2010!!