Two University of Colorado at Boulder professors are recipients of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on researchers at the start of their careers.
Gregory Asner, assistant professor in the geological sciences department and the Environmental Studies Program, and Linnea Avallone, assistant professor in the Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences and the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Sciences, were among 60 people receiving the award last month in a White House ceremony.
Nominated by one of eight federal departments and agencies, these outstanding young scientists and engineers will receive research grants for up to five years to further their research and educational efforts.
Asner was nominated by NASA for his leadership in developing innovative approaches to analyzing remotely sensed data from multiple satellite sensors and applying them to regional and global biogeochemistry.
His work involves understanding how human land use, including cattle ranching, agriculture and logging, interact with climate variability to alter exchanges of carbon dioxide and energy between vegetation, soils and the atmosphere, particularly in the southwest United States and the Amazon Basin.
Asner has been developing remote sensing analysis techniques that use the newest technologies in measuring vegetation, soil and atmospheric properties since he joined the CU-Boulder faculty in January.
Avallone was nominated by the National Science Foundation for developing instrumentation to detect gases that react with ozone in the boundary layer near the Earth's surface, and for integrating air chemistry research into graduate teaching.
The PECASE award will allow Avallone to continue research she has conducted since she arrived at CU-Boulder in 1996, and to add an inquiry-based laboratory graduate course and a seminar-style professional development course that will bring in speakers from schools, industry and government.
Avallone has been involved in a number of significant projects at CU-Boulder, including co-investigations of stratospheric chemistry using Earth Observing System satellites and the measurement of trace gases in the atmosphere from commercial aircraft, both NASA projects. She also has developed instruments to measure pollutants at the earth's surface for the Environmental Protection Agency.
PECASE awards were established in 1996 to recognize some of the nation's finest scientists and engineers and to maintain international leadership in scientific research. Recipients come from some of the nation's top science and technology institutions, including Johns Hopkins University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.