Regional Team: North America

Building local, thinking global

A regional team for North America

The North America Regional Team is the Oceanprediction DCC regional node for the mentioned region. The Regional Teams are the organizational backbone of OceanPrediction DCC community, and they are formed by individuals and organizations with very diverse background and interests: scientists and users, experts and interested persons, private and public sector, etc... 

The regional team will promote Operational Ocean Forecasting Services as a key tool for Blue Economy and ocean policy. It is also supporting the coordination and the cooperation of ocean forecasting-related Decade actions in the area, and it is advocating for the regional implementation of Best Practices, Standards and Tools derived from OceanPrediction technical activity. The Regional Team is active in the design and organization of regional events for capacity building, ocean literacy and other purposes, such as courses, workshops, hackathons, etc.

Working together with the regional teams in other regions, it will form a worldwide network to achieve all the above-mentioned objectives, ensuring that regional singularities are considered during the process.

Leading the Team

Chairs

Fraser Davidson holds a PhD in Oceanography from Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador. He has worked at the University of New South Wales Canberra Campus in Australia and in Toulouse France at the Laboratoire d’Etudes en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiales (LEGOS), Collecte Localisation Satellite and Mercator-Ocean. He then joined Fisheries and Oceans Canada in 2003 in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. 

For the last 20 years, Fraser Davidson has focused on advancing different aspects of operational oceanography. This includes working on geodesy, altimetry, the impact of tropical cyclones on internal gravity waves, ocean drift prediction, implementation and evaluation of ocean forecast systems, and developing ocean forecast output accessibility/visualization/verification systems. Since 2011 he chairs the Canadian Operational Network of Environmental Prediction Systems joint initiative with engagement from Environment and Climate Change Canada, National Defense, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the Canadian Coastguard and the Canadian Hydrographic Service.  Additionally, he participates as an expert representative on Ocean Prediction on the WMO-IOC Joint Collaboration Board since 2020.  Fraser is currently on assignment with the Canadian Hydrographic Service, leading the development of E-Navigation Products from Ocean Prediction systems and nurturing a development team to support operations at Environment and Climate Change Canada of newly developed Canadian port prediction systems with DFO Science.

Organizing the activities and ensuring the connection between the different components of OceanPrediction DCC
Eric Chassignet
Ocean forecasting - physics |Florida State University, Director, Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies (COAPS)
Douglas Schillinger
Section Head at Fisheries and Oceans Canada
Julio Sheinbaum
Professor Physical Oceanography at CICESE
Frederic Dupont
Ph.D.Researcher at Environment Canada
Jorge Zavala-Hidalgo
Research Associate at the Centro de Ciencias de la Atmósfera at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Elise Marie Black Olson
Research Scientist at Environment and Climate Change Canada
Patrick Heimbach
Professor at the University of Texas at Austin in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences (EPS)
Brian Mills
Research Scientist at Environment and Climate Change Canada
Hal Ritchie
Senior Scientist in Environment and Climate Change (E
Sarah Glaser
Senior Director at Oceans Futures
Isabelle Gaboury
Manager at Fisheries and Oceans Canada
Diane Payne
Associate Professor at University of Connecticut
Caisey Myers
Program Manager at Ocean Enterprise Initiative
Minna Ho
PhDin Physical Oceanography at UCLA

Terms of Reference of Regional Team

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