Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere

About Me:

Debra Molenar received a B.S. degree in Computer Science from Colorado State University in 1979. After graduation, Debra worked for the National Science Foundation Antarctic Research Program for 2 years. Prior to joining NESDIS in 1995, Debra was employed at Environmental Research and Technology, Air Resource Specialist, and the Colorado State University NOAA Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA). All positions involved IT support for environmental and meteorological monitoring and research.

Debra leads the IT support group at the NESDIS RAMM Branch (RAMMB) at CIRA. Highlights of Debra’s accomplishments include:

• Development of several software tools used in tropical and severe storm research, such storm relative motion investigation and automated Dvorak intensity analysis.
• Development, deployment and maintenance of RAMSDIS workstations at over 50 NWS Forecast Offices as a satellite training tool prior to AWIPS installation;
• Development, deployment and maintenance of RAMSDIS workstations in several international research programs, including Hurricane Mitch Relief, the Regional Meteorological Training Centers in Central America, and the WMO Virtual Lab program, which included workstations in Europe and Asia.
• Implementation of Distance Learning tools for meteorological training, including maintenance of a “pseudo-AWIPS” workstation in support of the Virtual Institute for Satellite Interpretation and Training project at RAMMB.
• Support of over 40 meteorological workstations providing tools and data ingest in the Linux, Unix, and Windows environment.

NOAA/NESDIS/StAR Profile