Space Weather Advisory Group advises U.S. Government agencies

Space Weather Advisory Group advises U.S. Government agencies

WASHINGTON, DC. The Space Weather Advisory Group (SWAG) met between January 18–20, 2023 at the Department of Commerce in Washington DC. They discussed efforts to improve the ability of the United States to prepare for, mitigate, respond to, and recover from space weather phenomena. NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad delivered remarks to the federal advisory group.

SWAG was established by the Promoting Research and Observations of Space Weather to Improve the Forecasting of Tomorrow Act of 2020, also known as the PROSWIFT Act (Public Law 116-181, 2020). The federal advisory group was formally organized in 2021 and by September of that year NOAA announced the appointment of 15 non-government members to the SWAG. The members were chosen to provide a range of views that represent the span of the space weather community and end-user sectors. They include:

Commercial Providers:

  • Jennifer Gannon, VP of Research and Development, Computational Physics, Inc. Lafayette, CO
  • Conrad Lautenbacher, Executive Chairman, GeoOptics, Inc., Dunwoody, GA
  • Seth Jonas, Principal, Lockheed Martin, Bethesda, MD
  • W. Kent Tobiska, President, Space Environment Technologies, Pacific Palisades, CA
  • Nicole Duncan, Heliophysics Mission Area Lead, Ball Aerospace, Boulder, CO

Academia:

  • Tamas Gombosi, Distinguished Professor, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
  • Delores Knipp, Research Professor, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO
  • Scott McIntosh, Deputy Director, National Centers for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO
  • Heather Elliott, Staff Scientist, Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX
  • George Ho, Chief Scientist (Instrumentation), Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD

End-Users:

  • Mark Olson, Senior Engineer and Manager, Reliability Assessments, North American Electric Reliability Corporation, Atlanta, GA
  • Michael Stills, Retired, (former) Director, Flight Dispatch, Network Operation Control Center, United Airlines, Ashburn, VA
  • Craig Fugate, Chief Emergency Management Officer, One Concern, Gainesville, FL
  • Tamara Dickinson, President, Science Matters Consulting, Washington, DC
  • Rebecca Bishop, Principal Scientist, Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, CA

In early 2022 Tamara Dickinson was appointed the Chair of SWAG and convened 4 meetings over the next 12 months.

The SWAG receives advice from the academic community, the commercial space weather sector, and nongovernmental space weather end-users to inform the National Science and Technology Council’s Space Weather Operations, Research, and Mitigation (SWORM) Interagency Working Group (IWG). “The government alone cannot manage all risks associated with space weather; we need a whole-of-community approach to effectively build a space-weather-resilient Nation,” said Ezinne Uzo-Okoro, Assistant Director of Space Policy, Office of Science Technology Policy at the White House and Co-Chair of the SWORM IWG. She continued, “The Space Weather Advisory Group represents an excellent cross-section of the space weather enterprise in this Nation. Leveraging their industry perspective will inevitably lead to more informed space weather policy.”

To learn more, visit the SWAG website.