UNC-CH Information Technology Services

Reed to take part in Hurricane Katrina summit

Dr. Daniel Reed, vice chancellor for IT and CIO, will participate in a live virtual discussion of how advanced technology can aid in understanding hurricanes and other severe storms. He will be joined by Ed Seidel, director of the Center for Computation and Technology at Louisiana State University, and Bob Wilhelmson, atmospheric scientist at the University of Illinois.

The hour-long panel discussion, moderated by Ed Kieser, chief meteorologist at WILL TV in Champaign, Ill., will take place Thursday, Sept. 28, at 2 p.m. Titled “Inside the Digital Storm: Using Computers to Understand and Predict Dangerous Weather,” the discussion will be offered live over the Access Grid multicast system and as a webcast at http://www.katrinasummit.uiuc.edu.

Panelists will look at how advanced modeling and visualization techniques and on-demand high-performance computing can improve scientists’ abilities to accurately predict and respond to weather-related disasters. They will also discuss how data from Hurricane Katrina is being used to develop a better understanding of hurricanes, storm surges, flooding and other phenomena related to major storm systems.

The discussion is part of “Katrina: After the Storm - Civic Engagement Through the Arts, Humanities and Technology,” a three-day virtual summit that examines the impacts of Hurricane Katrina and the lessons learned about public policy, social justice and equity and the role of technology in dealing with disasters.