National Water Center Innovators Program: Summer Institute

The National Water Center Innovators Program was established as a partnership between CUAHSI and the National Weather Service to help engage the academic research community in the enhancement of the National Water Model. The main activity of the Innovators Program is a seven-week Summer Institute (SI) at the National Water Center, which brings graduate students together with faculty advisors and National Water Center staff to conduct group projects that involve rapid prototyping of new ideas. The intent is to create an innovation incubator where students from many universities can exchange ideas and advance concepts that, although they may be analyzed only for a short time and on a small study area, are illustrative of issues that affect the functioning of the National Water Model across the continental United States.

The first Summer Institute, originally called the National Flood Interoperability Experiment (NFIE), was held June through July of 2015, and focused on the formation of a prototype National Water Model running in the Texas Advanced Computing Center of the University of Texas at Austin. The prototype model demonstrated that the discharge on 2.7 million stream reaches of the United States could be simulated and forecast in real-time using input precipitation and weather information produced by NOAA and a computational framework called WRF-Hydro developed at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The key innovation demonstrated at the first Summer Institute was a hybrid grid-catchment information framework for the National Water Model in which the land-atmosphere computations were carried out on square grid cells covering the continental U.S., and the resulting runoff was geographically transformed onto the 2.7 million catchments of the National Hydrography Dataset Plus (NHDPlus) and routed through the NHDPlus stream network. It was shown that the continental stream network could be treated in real-time as a single flow continuum, from atmosphere to oceans and from coast to coast.

2020 will be the sixth Summer Institute. Students apply to attend the program in the fall. Selected students then plan to reside in Tuscaloosa for the seven week program from June through July. Students are grouped into teams organized around projects defined by the theme leaders and pre-selected topics. While there may be some overlap with the students' individual MS/PhD research projects, the expectation is that the work and research done during the Summer Institute will be a separate, self-contained projects.

2015 – The first Summer Institute, called the National Flood Interoperability Experiment, resulted in the development of a National Water Model prototype.

2016 – The HAND method is coupled with the newly operational National Water Model to establish, for the first time, the foundation for continuous real-time flood inundation mapping across the United States.

2017 – The third Summer Institute explored how the National Water Model can serve as a bridge between data generators (traditionally modelers who want to ensure the data is as accurate as possible) and data users (those who use data to communicate, plan, and respond), resulting in an unprecedented opportunity to improve the way that water information is exchanged and communicated.

2018 – The fourth Summer Institute focused on the underlying science of the National Water Model through investigating current hydrologic process algorithms, particularly related to the representation of groundwater and river channel processes in the National Water Model, as well as modeling at very fine scales.

If you are interested in learning more about the Summer Institute, please take a look at the following resources:

• View the recorded presentations from CUAHSI's 2018 Summer Institute Cyberseminar Series, which provided an overview of the Summer Institute experience for prospective student participants, academic advisors, and others who are interested in becoming involved din the SI.
• View the recorded presentations as part of CUAHSI's 2016 Fall Cyberseminar Series Featuring the National Water Model
• View the Technical Reports highilighting student projects from the 2017, 2018, and 2019 Summer Institutes:
  2017 Report 
  2018 Report 
  2019 Report
• Take a look at the Story Map describing the experiences of the 2016 Summer Institute Fellows
• Watch this short video created by the 2016 Summer Institute Fellows

Questions regarding the Summer Institute can be sent to jmasterman@cuahsi.org. 

The schedule below is meant to be an example for prosepective applicants to the 2020 Summer Institute. Dates are subject to change.

Applications will be accepted from current and incoming graduate students and post-docs within three years of graduating with their PhD. Applicants must be affiliated with US universities. Applicants who are not US citizens will need to report their visa status. Due to security regulations, all accepted applicant’s involvement in the SI will be contingent upon a foreign national visitor approval process. Upon acceptance into the program all participants will need to provide additional security clearance documents and fingerprints, and must be cleared by NOAA Security.

Additionally, students must be able to reside on-site at the University of Alabama for the entire program.

Students selected to participate in the Summer Institute will receive reimbursement of travel expenses to and from Tuscaloosa, and a meal stipend while attending the program. Dorm-style lodging will be provided at the University of Alabama. Students will have their own bedrooms, but will share a living suite. Due to the scale of the program, CUAHSI is unable to accommodate requests for single occupancy suites or housing for spouses or children.

We encourage involvement from the students’ advisors, and as such, CUAHSI has funds to support travel expenses for advisors to make a trip to attend the SI Capstone event.

Summer Institute applications can be submitted here. 

Students will be evaluated based on their background, knowledge, training, and experience, as well as the degree to which they have the skills and the abilities to work in a fast-paced, collaborative environment. While there may be some overlap with the students' individual MS/PhD research projects, the expectation is that the work and research done during the Summer Institute will be a separate, self-contained project.

The application consists of: 

• Application Form (submitted online through Proposal Space - you must create a free account to start your application)
• Statement of interest. A brief statement which explains why you would like to participate in the SI and how the SI will contribute to your graduate studies. The Statement of Interest should be brief – one to two paragraphs is sufficient, not to exceed one page.
• CV. A one to two page CV detailing your education and research.
• Transcript. A recent copy of your transcript. Transcript may be unofficial (not sealed by registrar).
• Letter of Endorsement from your faculty advisor. The letter should endorse the student's participation in the Summer Institute and explain why the student is qualified to participate in the SI and how the experience will benefit the student’s research. The letter should be signed by the student's advisor and uploaded as a pdf file. 

Please contact Julia Masterman at jmasterman@cuahsi.org with questions.

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