NASA Scientist Honored with Distinguished Federal Service Award

Dr. Stephanie Schollaert Uz of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, has been awarded the Arthur S. Flemming Award for Applied Science.

Established in 1948, the Flemming Awards are organized and maintained by the Atlantic Council, a nonpartisan think tank that seeks to promote constructive leadership and engagement in international affairs. According to The George Washington University, who administers the selection process, the awards are aimed at honoring outstanding service by federal government employees and are recognized by the president of the United States, agency leaders, and the private sector.

Schollaert Uz is internationally recognized for advancing the application of satellite remote sensing through the novel integration of data and models to improve monitoring of water quality. Recently, to identify and close gaps between policy and decision maker needs and satellite capabilities, Dr. Schollaert Uz formed a coalition of stakeholders from federal, state, and municipal agencies, academia, and industry groups who are working together to solve challenges posed by water-borne pollutants and pathogens.

Schollaert Uz continues to advise early-career scientists in developing new methods to distinguish aquatic constituents through their optical signatures, which is expected to benefit NASA's next generation satellite missions. She is also routinely invited to speak and engage with other agencies and organizations.

'This is an incredible surprise and entirely due to working with fantastic folks,' Schollaert Uz said. 'I am truly honored and humbled to have such an interesting job in the best earth science division in the world.'

Schollaert Uz is an atmospheric and oceanic scientist and the applied sciences manager at NASA Goddard. She connects NASA researchers across NASA's Earth Sciences Division with end users, developing external partnerships to facilitate new uses of Earth observations for societal benefit.

She leads a team to explore innovative and practical uses of satellite data products and engage end-users to identify needs. She works closely with external partners, including governmental and non-governmental organizations, resource managers, policy analysts, national security and foreign policy experts, academic institutions, and private businesses. Her work also aims to communicate the societal and economic value of using Earth observation data products in strategic planning and operational decision-making.

Her scientific research focuses on the response of marine and aquatic ecosystems to physical forcing through the use of satellite remote sensing data, in situ measurements, model output and statistical reconstructions. She has collected data on the high seas of the Atlantic, Pacific and Mediterranean. Locally, she is the principal investigator on a new project exploring ways to apply remote sensing to identify water quality issues for aquaculture in the Chesapeake Bay. These and many other applied sciences activities often provide baseline information for NASA's missions such as the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem mission called PACE, scheduled to launch in 2023.

For more information about the Flemming Awards, visit: https://tspppa.gwu.edu/arthur-s-flemming-awards

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