An internationally recognized atmospheric scientist and a descendant of the first elected chief of the Cherokee Nation will be speaking at Rogers State University on Friday and Saturday in connection with the third annual Aero Games competition, which is sponsored by Google.
Robbie Hood, Director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Program, will speak at the Claremore campus at 1 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 24, in Health Sciences room 131. This presentation is free and open to the public. A reception will follow in the Health Sciences atrium.
On Saturday, Oct. 25, she will be speaking as part of the Aero Games competition at the RSU Pryor campus. Sponsored by Google and RSU, Aero Games is a science and technology-focused competition for middle and high school students.
The topic for her talks will be “Working with Unmanned Aircraft Systems to Improve Earth Observations.”
As director of the UAS program, Hood oversees a program that assesses the feasibility of civilian applications of unnamed aircraft to address the NOAA mission of science, service and stewardship. The NOAA UAS Program is exploring a full range of technologies from small unmanned aircraft systems launched by hand to monitor the fragile ecosystems of our National Marine Sanctuaries to very large, high altitude craft like the Global Hawk, which can fly more than 9,000 nautical miles during a 24-hour period to observe high impact storms such as hurricanes.
An atmospheric scientist with more than 30 years of experience as a remote sensing scientist and project manager, Hood has served as Director of the NOAA UAS Program for six years. She also has served as an instrument, mission and project scientist of aircraft field experiments during a 21-year career at NASA. Her research interests have included investigations of precipitation, thunderstorm, and hurricane properties using manned and remotely piloted aircraft.
Hood is a direct descendant of John Ross, who served as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation for nearly 40 years during the era of the “Trail of Tears” Indian removals and the Civil War.
She earned a Bachelor of Science in atmospheric science from the University of Missouri, Columbia, and a Master of Science in physical meteorology from Florida State University, Tallahassee.
NOAA’s mission is to understand and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.
For more information about NOAA’s UAS Program, visit uas.noaa.gov/.