Project Team
INVESTIGATORS' BACKGROUNDS AND QUALIFICATIONS
The following are summary reviews of the
investigators' backgrounds and qualifications, in relation to the work they will
perform. For more background, biographical sketches can be found for each in
Appendix G of the OWPI project proposal
.
Mr. Hughes has had an interest in renewable energy sources, especially wind power, for over 20 years. Seeing an opportunity to build upon the tremendous value of Oklahoma Mesonet's wind data resource, he proposed the Oklahoma Wind Power Initiative in the fall of 1999 as a long-term joint effort between OU and OSU. At that time, he produced the first map of estimated wind power in Oklahoma using the available Mesonet wind summaries.
Mr. Hughes's background is in math, physics, computers, meteorology, and instrumentation, with recent forays into GIS applications. He is currently a Research Associate at the Environmental Verification and Analysis Center (EVAC), at OU. Before joining EVAC in 1999, he was Assistant Project Manager and Project Manager for the Oklahoma Mesonet for eight years and thus is very knowledgeable about Mesonet data, station sites, and hardware installation. He will use his technical and management experience to act as project director for OWPI. Specifically, he will:
- set evaluation criteria for the assessment of wind power at 10m and 50m levels;
- review quality control on the assessment inputs;
- contribute educational outreach materials, including tutorials on wind power calculations, proper siting of small wind power generators, and factors to consider in siting of large-scale wind power farms;
- initiate contacts with professional educators;
- research funding sources for continued wind power studies;
- oversee wind instrumentation issues; and
- act as editor on documents and a poster presentation for the WindPower 2001 conference.
Mark Meo is a Research Fellow in the Science and Public Policy Program and a Professor of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science at The University of Oklahoma. One of his areas of expertise and interest is alternative energy policy. Dr. Meo's task will be to address the policy options for motivating wind power development in the state of Oklahoma with specific attention to:
- economic feasibility;
- effects of institutional and financial incentives;
- existing impediments and/or barriers to wind power development; and
- market potential for the wind power industry under a deregulated electric power regime.
In his analysis, he will draw upon current and planned activities in the states that currently produce wind power (e.g.: California, Texas, Iowa, and Minnesota), and he will address the potential value of wind-generated electricity as an input to cleaner fuels production in Oklahoma. His contributions will ensure that this work will provide the focus, base-line data, and results for subsequent research efforts.
Mark Shafer is a Staff Climatologist with the Oklahoma Climatological Survey (OCS), where he has been employed since 1990. He holds a B.S. degree in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Illinois and an M.S. Degree in Meteorology from the University of Oklahoma. In addition to his full-time work at the Climatological Survey, he is completing a Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Oklahoma.
Mr. Shafer presently works in the service side of OCS, principally in data management and product development. During his tenure at OCS, he has been involved in several aspects of developing the Oklahoma Mesonet. During 1992, he coordinated the site-selection process, and personally surveyed most sites across Western Oklahoma, an area expected to be rich in wind resources. In 1995 he developed automated quality-assurance procedures for the data recorded by the Mesonet [Shafer et al, 2000]. Mr. Shafer currently works with a variety of clients to produce tailored products from Mesonet and other data archives to meet applied research needs.
Because of his background in Mesonet site selection, quality-assurance, and product development, Mr. Shafer will contribute to the quality of wind products developed in support of this project. In particular, he will be able to identify local conditions or instrument problems that may affect the quality of the product, before it is used in additional analyses. His experience at working with a diverse range of clients will ensure that the products developed for this project are easily imported into GIS applications.
Mr. Shafer began the Ph.D. program in Political Science in 1995. His focus is on the areas of public policy and management and the utilization of technical information in policy decisions, especially those relating to natural hazards management. With this background, he is well qualified to contribute to the needs assessments, benefits, and policy feasibility aspects of this project.
Dr. Stadler is a professor of Geography at Oklahoma State University and has been at the university since 1980. Now he also serves as the State Geographer of Oklahoma. His Ph.D. is in Physical Geography and he specializes in applied climatology. His research has emphasized interactions between the atmosphere and society and the atmosphere and landscape. Also in progress is a co-authored applied climatology book for Prentice-Hall. He has been a member of the Steering Committee of the Oklahoma Mesonetwork since its inception. He is knowledgeable about uses, limitations, and analyses of Mesonet data. In particular, he has had considerable experience in the spatial interpolation of Mesonet data.
Dr. Yuan has been actively involved in studying geographic information representation and analysis since 1994. Her doctoral research is on GIS representation and modeling, the presentation of which received the best student paper award from the GIS specialty group in the 1994 American Association of Geographers annual meeting. Subsequent papers on geographic representation and information management and analysis have been published in various scientific journals and book collections. Through these studies, Dr. Yuan has developed GIS methods to assess spatial and temporal relationships among geographic features and processes. Her recent work involves analysis of severe weather impacts in human environments. She is interested in examining severe weather climatologies, such as heavy winds and lightning strikes and their influences on wind farm planning and future operations. Her expertise in mapping and relating environmental and socio-economic variables in space and time will directly apply to the analysis of wind farm siting, wind power forecasting, and socio-economic impacts.
Dr. Finchum is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at Oklahoma State University. His primary interests are in Urban Geography and Geographic Information Systems, with specific interests in the development and maintenance of spatial databases and web based GIS applications. His work with the OWPI Project since late 2001 has been in advising on spatial database development and the maintenance of the project website.