Dr. Joshua Wurman grew up in Pennsylvania, received his BS, MS, and ScD's from MIT then moved to NCAR to develop bistatic radar networks. He moved to OU and developed the DOW mobile radars, and began to study tornadoes, hurricanes, fires and other phenomena from close up in order to see details that were not otherwise resolvable. The DOWs can see 4D details with literally tens-of-thousands of times the resolution of traditional radars. Wurman and the DOWs created the first maps of tornado winds, the first mapping of multiple vortices, the first dual-Doppler vector wind retrievals in tornadoes, measured the highest ever tornadic winds, conducted the only radar-data-based calibration of the Fujita scale, and discovered sub-kilometer-scale hurricane boundary layer rolls. Wurman leads the ROTATE tornado research program, which has obtained data in over 100 tornadoes and dual-Doppler data in about a dozen. These data are being used by Wurman and his collaborators to study tornadogenesis, tornado structure and low level tornadic winds. The DOWs have intercepted nine hurricane eyes, obtaining dual-Doppler data in five, and most recently intercepted the eye of Rita as it came ashore near Port Arthur , Texas . Wurman and the DOWs have participated in far flung projects, from alpine studies in Switzerland (MAP) to turbulence studies in Alaska (JAWS), and many projects in between including VORTEX, FLATLAND/LIFT, IPEX, CALJET, and IHOP.

Recently Wurman invented the Rapid-Scan DOW, which represents a major jump in the DOWs' ability to observe severe and rapidly changing phenomena. It is a passive phased array radar that sweeps the sky with 6 simultaneous beams, retrieving 3D volumes in 5-10 seconds. The Rapid-Scan DOW, first deployed in 2003, enables Wurman to witness, in 3D, the very rapid processes involved with tornadogenesis, multiple vortices, hurricane boundary layer rolls, fires, and other very quickly evolving phenomena.

Dr. Greg Forbes is a very familiar face on The Weather Channel when severe weather breaks out. Dr. Forbes was a student of the late Dr. Ted Fujita, and his PhD thesis was entitled: “Three scales of motions associated with Tornadoes”. Dr. Forbes brings 30+ years of tornado research and recently was chair of the F-Scale Symposium in 2004.

Tim Marshall needs no introduction. Tim has been chasing for 30 years, and is current owner of the Stormtrack.com website. If you never heard Tim speak before, you are in for a real treat. His presentations always have people laughing aloud most of the time. A licensed Professional Engineer for HAAG Engineering, Tim is an expert in Building Damage Assessment  from all types of disasters - natural and man-made. He has wonderful insight to his passion which shows when he talks!

Jon Davies is a private meteorologist now living in the Kansas City area, where he recently moved from Wichita, Kansas.  He focuses on practical operational research concerning severe weather and tornado forecasting.  Jon graduated from the University of Kansas in 1980, and has worked as a broadcast meteorologist and forecaster for several television stations and private weather consulting firms.  He also worked at the Weather Channel in the 1980’s. 

Jon has published several papers in professional meteorological publications. His more notable work has focused on wind shear and instability combinations associated with significant tornadoes, as well as nonsupercell tornado settings and tornadoes near midlevel cold core lows.  Jon recently wrote a book about tornadoes and storm chasing for middle school kids, “Storm Chasers! On the Trail of Twisters”. 

Jon’s interest in severe weather began while he was growing up in Pratt, Kansas, where he witnessed his first tornado at age 9.  He continues to enjoy storm chasing and storm spotting as a serious hobby and educational activity.

Howard (Howie “Cb”) B. Bluestein, a native of Boston, MA, is a George Lynn Cross Research Professor of Meteorology at the School of Meteorology, University of Oklahoma (OU), Norman. He earned an S.B. and S. M. in electrical engineering in 1971 and 1972 and an S. M. and Ph. D. in meteorology in 1972 and 1976 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He has been a professor at OU since 1976; he has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in synoptic meteorology and graduate courses in mesoscale meteorology and in convection. In 2004 he received the Teaching Excellence Award from the AMS. From 2000 – 2004 he was a Samuel Roberts Noble Presidential Professor. He has also been a long-term scientific visitor in the Mesoscale Microscale Meteorology Division at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, CO, an instructor at COMET (Cooperative Program for Operational Meteorology, Education, and Training) in Boulder, CO, a scientific visitor at the Hurricane Research Division of the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory of NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) in Miami, FL, and the Houghton Lecturer at MIT.
            Bluestein’s research interests include synoptic and mesoscale meteorology, severe convective storms and tornadoes, and tropical cyclones. Having participated in severe-storm intercept projects since 1977, he most recently has been using mobile W- and X-band Doppler radars to study tornadoes and severe storms. He is the author of Synoptic-Dynamic Meteorology in Midlatitudes, Vols. I and II (Oxford Univ. Press, 1992 and 1993) and of Tornado Alley (Oxford Univ. Press, 1999), for which he received the AMS 2001 Louis J. Battan’s Author’s award. He is currently working on a book on clouds for Yale Univ. Press. He is also the author or coauthor of 88 refereed journal publications and 15 refereed book chapters. His photographs, which have been published worldwide, have been reproduced on the cover of Time magazine and in publications such as Scientific American, Le Figaro Magazine, Geo (Germany and France), Focus (Italy), and Weatherwise. He has appeared on television on NOVA, special programs on the BBC, Discovery Channel, the Weather Channel, the History Channel, and the Learning Channel, and in the IMAX movie Stormchasers.
He is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), and has served as chair of UCAR’s (University Corporation for Atmospheric Research) Scientific Programs Evaluation Committee, the National Science Foundation Observing Facilities Advising Panel (OFAP), and the AMS Committee on Severe Local Storms. He has also served on the National Research Council (NRC) Board of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (BASC) and on the NRC Committee on Weather Radar Technology Beyond NEXRAD (Next Generation Radar), and as an associate editor of the AMS peer-reviewed scientific journal Monthly Weather Review. He currently is the chair of OFAP for a second term,  serves on the AMS Committee on Radar Meteorology and on the NAS/NRC Committee on Strategic Guidance for NSF’s Support of the Atmospheric Sciences. He is also one of two co-editors of the Sanders Symposium Monograph to be published by the AMS.

Mike Umscheid is an operational meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Dodge City, KS.  Mike grew up in Kansas, on the other side of the state in Kansas City and received his B.S. degree in Meteorology from the University of Kansas in 2002.  Mike has been actively chasing storms since 1998, witnessing and documenting countless supercells and tornadoes from Montana and North Dakota through the heart of the Plains to South Texas – most recently the prolific tornado-producing storm just south of Dodge City on October 26, 2006.  Some of Mike’s favorite forecast challenges include mesoscale aspects of winter storms on the High Plains, shallow arctic air masses, and tornadoes in low-CAPE environments near the center of cold-core extra-tropical cyclones.  Mike’s love of digital photography spurred from storm chasing in 2005, and he now devotes all his energy to capturing the finest digital images of High Plains severe storms -- supercells or otherwise.  Mike maintains a website called “Under The Meso” at http://www.underthemeso.com, where a collection of his photography can be viewed.

Tim Samaras has been a rather passionate chaser for 20+ years. The famous Colorado Convention series actually started in his home with a few friends who share the same passion of storm chasing and to fend off the winter blues. Pizza was ordered, and the evening was spent watching videos and talking about those terrific spring days and the forecasts that brought those chasers there. Discussions took place to make sense out of the upcoming spring and what bounty it would bring. Comradre, chase strategies, and perhaps some chase stories being stretched a little due to a rather strong inflow were commonplace. With friends like Roger Hill and Brad Carter whom also share the same passion, the ball just kept rolling!

Tim can be seen out each spring with some sort of new gadget, idea, or contraption. Last year it was the development of some special probes that were developed by him and the company he works for, Applied Research Associates, Inc., where he was awarded an SBIR PHASE II from the Department of Commerce/NOAA to develop the next generation of TOTO(TOtable Tornado Observatory), and the NSSL Turtles, to measure the meteorological parameters of the violent regions of a tornado core. On May 7th, 2003 he and Brad Carter were successful in the deployment of these probes within the large F-3 tornado in SW Kansas on May 7th, 2002. Last year they were successful in getting one of these probes directly in the path of a tornado

He has also escorted the BBC, National Geographic, Pioneer Productions, local news media/paper folks out to tornado alley where they all were able to witness the most violent storms on earth: The Tornado.

Dr. Alexander E. (Sandy) MacDonald was named the first Director of the Earth System Research Laboratory and first Deputy Assistant Administrator for NOAA Research Laboratories and Cooperative Institutes on July 27, 2006. Dr. MacDonald served as Acting Director for the Earth System Research Laboratory and Director of the ESRL Global Systems Division during the consolidation of the Boulder Laboratories into the Earth System Research Laboratory in 2006. Prior to the consolidation, Dr. MacDonald led the Forecast Systems Laboratory.

Dr. MacDonald was the Director of the Program for Regional Observing and Forecasting Services (PROFS) from 1983 to 1988. From 1980 - 1982, he was Chief of PROFS' Exploratory Development Group and from 1975 - 1980 he was a Techniques Improvement Meteorologist in the Scientific Services Division, Western Region, National Weather Service in Salt Lake City, UT. He was an Air Force Officer while a member of the U.S. Air Force from 1967 - 1971.