Researcher of the Month
January 2008
Rob Hunter
Computer Science Major, Class of 08, URECA Summer '07 Researcher
Research Mentor: Drs. Malcolm Bowman and Brian Colle, School of Marine & Atmospheric Sciences
Talk about the calm before the storm! Meet Rob Hunter, the low-key computer science
major who prior to impending nor’easters and the like can be found quietly at work—tweaking
models, correcting for grid instabilities, doing all he can to improve surge forecasts
for the Storm Surge Research Group. Rob currently serves as senior software developer
for the team, a group he joined in 2005 as a freshman when he began working with Dr. Malcolm
Bowman, professor of physical oceanography and Distinguished Service Professor at
the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. Rob enjoys collaborating with all members
of the team, including Frank Bouonaiuto and Professors Brian Colle, Roger Flood, Robert
Wilson, also of SoMAS.
Last summer, Rob’s research was funded through the URECA Summer program; in the previous
two summers, his work was supported through New York Sea Grant. The storm surge team’s
important work was profiled last March in the New York Times article “How Safe is My Home?” The breadth of research experience Rob has had while
working with the Storm Surge group, using the MM5/WRF meteorological models, and the
ADCIRC (ADvance CIRCulation model for oceanic, coastal and estuarine water), models
that run daily with different ensemble members using different initial conditions,
atmospheric predictions and model parameters, has been invaluable. Currently, Rob
plans to further his expertise by pursuing a graduate degree in the field of oceanography/
marine sciences.
Difficult as predicting the weather can be, anyone trying to forecast Rob’s current course of study and professional trajectory from freshman to senior years might have been quite at sea. As it happens, Rob hails from Silver Spring, Maryland and was a Magnet student at Montgomery Blair High School. While his interest in physics was what initially drew him to Stony Brook, it was a happy chance meeting off campus with Prof. Bowman that brought him first to the Marine Sciences Research Center for undergraduate research― a niche he's since been quite at home with, in any kind of weather! Rob plays trumpet and writes science fiction; he has presented at URECA’s Celebration of Research, the annual campus wide research symposium, for the past 3 years. Look for his poster this April 30th at the Student Activities Center. Below is his interview with Karen Kernan, URECA Director.
Karen: Describe your research area. What do you do?
Rob: We’re working on modeling storm surge in the NY harbor area to real time warnings
of water level and coastal flooding using constantly updated weather forecasts. We
also look at long term relative to sea level rise to see how that would affect the
threats to the area. Over the summer I was working on developing a new grid to have
the model run on which we hope to be more accurate and which covers the south shore
of Long Island (something we didn’t have before).
To get it running, we have 9 runs in the model that run every day. I work on the programming
to pull in the weather data, run the 9 models, do the post processing and then plot
it to the website. One of our big goals is trying to get a model that works and can
provide accurate forecasts. We’re trying to continually improve that. Occasionally,
we’ve gotten groups that are interested in specific things, like say―knowing where
it’s going to flood with a category III hurricane, or if the sea level rises so many
centimeters. . . So we run tests and see what happens.
How many days’ forecast do you attempt?
We have 60 hour weather forecasts.
How long have you been working with the group?
I’ve been working since my freshman year— so it’s now 3 years I guess, including summers.
I actually happened to meet Malcolm Bowman at one of the local churches. We started
talking and he told me he was looking for some undergraduate researchers. At the time,
I was thinking of being a physics major. But I was interested in the project and we
went from there. Malcolm is a great person to work with. And I’ve had the chance to
work with the rest of the team— Frank, Brian …Its’ been great.
How much time do you actually spend doing research?
During the academic year, I’d say about 10 or 15 hours a week. And during the summer,
it’s full time.
Are there other undergraduates in the Storm Surge Team/Research Group?
Therearen’t at the moment. But there have been several students involved. Recently,
we had a high school student, Chris Cluett, working with us over this past summer
who was in the Simons Program.
Has your project or the focus of your project changed significantly over the time
you've worked there?
It’s moved away from just computer science and programming to more of actually working
with the model and developing the grid, tweaking the model parameters and such. Our
model has definitely gotten better with the new grid. And we have an ensemble with
multiple runs which helps.
Has doing undergraduate research enhanced your education?
I would definitely say it has. It’s given me a chance to explore other things I wouldn’t
have taken classes in. I probably wouldn’t have thought about doing marine sciences
otherwise. So it’s definitely helped broaden my experiences. And having the opportunity
to apply what I’ve learned in computer science has been good also. I’m now planning
on going into grad school in marine sciences!
Did being around graduate students have an impact on you?
We have a few graduate students working with us, two right now. Just being around
them, and doing research, and seeing what they’re doing has influenced me, and made
me realize that this work is what I want to do. I’m looking into several oceanography
graduate programs.
What are your best and worst days of research so far?
We’ve had some times when the model has gone down right before we’re going to have
a big storm and we’re panicking to get it up and working. Sometimes we can’t figure
out why it’s down and we have multiple problems. We’re all stressed out then. Sometimes
the model goes down and we have to make sure to get everything up and running, and
make sure that we’re not going to fill up the hard drives and crash or anything like
that.
The best days are after a storm, when you’ve had a good forecast, and predicted it
fairly accurately. Then we’re happy with how it went. We do some analysis of the storm
and see how accurate we were.
Did you previously have a strong background in atmospheric/marine sciences?
Not at all! I had taken a marine bio in high school. But I hadn’t thought about atmospheric
sciences. I was more focused on particle physics. I had done high school research
when I was in the magnet program at Blair. I did Intel. I didn’t do well at it, but
I did a research project with Dr. Rabindra Mohapatra, a physics professor at University
of Maryland, that involved neutrinos and neutrino oscillations as they pass through
different density areas.
Last summer, I know, you were funded with URECA. Have you had other funding opportunities?
The Storm Surge project gets funded through SeaGrant. They’ve provided funding for
me in past summers.
Tell me about any presentation experiences you’ve had.
I haven’t presented off-campus. But I’ve presented at URECA for the past 3 years,
since '05. It’s been good both to present a poster, and to see what everybody else
is working on. Each year, we’ve had several members of our group presenting on our
Storm Surge project. A lot of people come by. And it’s great having the chance to
explain the project to people who don’t have the background on it or the familiarity
with it. Being able to do that helps the general understanding of what exactly we’re
doing. People have been very receptive to it.
What advice would you give to other students?
I’d definitely recommend getting involved in some sort of research. It provides new
experiences that you wouldn’t have just in classes. And it definitely helps for figuring
out what you want to do— especially if it’s not something you would immediately think
of doing but is related to what you’re interested in. It helps just to make sure
you know what you want to do. Meeting people and working with professors is also good
because it provides a very different interaction than when you’re taking classes with
them.
Can you articulate what it is that you enjoy about research?
I think it’s mostly the problem-solving ― seeing results from all the hard work. Making
the model better, doing well when we have storms. . . But the teamwork is nice too!