I grew up in a less structured age with much free time after school. Instead of youtube, I was entertained: by brown spore plumes spouting from puff balls on a prostrate tree trunk that was still almost taller than I was, by the challenge of capturing crayfish from a stream without getting pinched, by the alien ostracods that appeared in my field of view when I dripped green pond water onto my microscope slide, by flying through the air by climbing young trees and swinging them to the ground. (Years later, when I ran across Frost's Birches, I almost felt as if he had been an observer of my childhood.) Sure, I watched my share of television, but Bugs Bunny and Scooby Doo were leavened by Marlin Perkins and Jacques-Yves Cousteau who assured me that the wonders from my own back woods were multiplied many times over around the globe.
Perhaps because water covers so much of our planet, perhaps because ocean life seemed more exotic than what I had so far encountered, or perhaps because I found Cousteau more compelling than Perkins... whatever the reason, I gravitated towards oceanography during high school and my first two years at the University of Tennessee. A transfer to Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) landed me on the seashore where I, in turn, landed my bachelor's in biological oceanography two years later in 1984.
During my time at FIT, I assisted my organic chemistry professor, Dr. Richard Langler, with his organo-sulfur research on many Friday evenings -- running synthesis reactions and NMR spectra of the results. Conversations during those times led him to suggest that I apply to his alma mater, Dalhousie University, for graduate school. This I did, and I was subsequently accepted into their biological oceanography program.
My supervisor at Dalhousie, Dr. Marlon Lewis, directed me towards remote sensing research using NASA's Coastal Zone Color Scanner which was still functioning at the time. I eventually used those data to derive primary production estimates on the northwest Atlantic continental shelf -- doing part of the work during a summer internship at Goddard in 1986.
As I worked to complete my master's thesis, I found that I needed better computer skills in order to interpret the remote-sensing data that I was using, so I taught myself how to program in C and, more generally, how to manipulate the binary data that I was using. During this time my interest was held less and less by the research itself and more and more by the programming and data manipulation that enabled the research and made it presentable.
Upon finishing my master's degree in 1988, I was offered a position at NASA/Goddard by Dr. Gene Feldman who thought my computer skills and knowledge of oceanography could be of use to NASA's nascent ocean color program. Since then, I have been making remotely-sensed data more accessible to the oceanographic community by designing and building browsing programs first for the CZCS mission and then SeaWiFS and the several others that have followed. I also create imagery from our data holdings that are used both by NASA and outside organizations and researchers.
M.Sc. in biological oceanography from Dalhousie University - Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1988
Thesis: Satellite-derived estimates of primary production on the northwest Atlantic continental shelf
B.Sc. in biological oceanography from Florida Institute of Technology - Melbourne, 1984
Refereed
Franz, B. A., S. W. Bailey, N. A. Kuring, and J. Werdell. 2015. "Ocean color measurements with the Operational Land Imager on Landsat-8: implementation and evaluation in SeaDAS."
Journal of Applied Remote Sensing,
9
(1):
096070
[10.1117/I.JRS.9.096070]
Siegel, D. A., B. Behrenfeld, S. Maritorena, et al. 2013. "Regional to global assessments of phytoplankton dynamics from the SeaWiFS mission."
Remote Sensing of Environment,
135:
77-91
[10.1016/j.rse.2013.03.025]
Eckardt, F. D., and N. Kuring. 2005. "SeaWiFS identifies dust sources in the Namib Desert."
Int J Remote Sens,
26
(19):
4159-4167.
Acker, J. G., N. Kuring, C. W. Brown, A. C. Hine, and E. Armstrong. 2002. "Satellite remote sensing observations and aerial photography of storm-induced neritic carbonate transport from shallow carbonate platforms."
International Journal of Remote Sensing,
23
(14):
2853-2868
[10.1080/01431160110106122]
Holben, B. N., N. A. Kuring, G. C. Feldman, et al. 2001. "Asian dust events of April 1998."
Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres,
106
(D16):
18317–18330
[10.1029/2000JD900788]
Kuring, N., M. R. Lewis, T. Platt, and J. E. O'Reilly. 1990. "Satellite-derived estimates of primary production on the northwest Atlantic continental shelf."
Continental Shelf Research,
10
(5):
461-484
[10.1016/0278-4343(90)90050-V]
Kuring, N., M. R. Lewis, and C. Yentsch. 1988. "Global patterns of ocean transparency: Implications for the new production of the open ocean."
Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans,
93
(C6):
6847–6856
[10.1029/JC093iC06p06847]
I grew up in a less structured age with much free time after school. Instead of youtube, I was entertained: by brown spore plumes spouting from puff balls on a prostrate tree trunk that was still almost taller than I was, by the challenge of capturing crayfish from a stream without getting pinched, by the alien ostracods that appeared in my field of view when I dripped green pond water onto my microscope slide, by flying through the air by climbing young trees and swinging them to the ground. (Years later, when I ran across Frost's Birches, I almost felt as if he had been an observer of my childhood.) Sure, I watched my share of television, but Bugs Bunny and Scooby Doo were leavened by Marlin Perkins and Jacques-Yves Cousteau who assured me that the wonders from my own back woods were multiplied many times over around the globe.
Perhaps because water covers so much of our planet, perhaps because ocean life seemed more exotic than what I had so far encountered, or perhaps because I found Cousteau more compelling than Perkins... whatever the reason, I gravitated towards oceanography during high school and my first two years at the University of Tennessee. A transfer to Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) landed me on the seashore where I, in turn, landed my bachelor's in biological oceanography two years later in 1984.
During my time at FIT, I assisted my organic chemistry professor, Dr. Richard Langler, with his organo-sulfur research on many Friday evenings -- running synthesis reactions and NMR spectra of the results. Conversations during those times led him to suggest that I apply to his alma mater, Dalhousie University, for graduate school. This I did, and I was subsequently accepted into their biological oceanography program.
My supervisor at Dalhousie, Dr. Marlon Lewis, directed me towards remote sensing research using NASA's Coastal Zone Color Scanner which was still functioning at the time. I eventually used those data to derive primary production estimates on the northwest Atlantic continental shelf -- doing part of the work during a summer internship at Goddard in 1986.
As I worked to complete my master's thesis, I found that I needed better computer skills in order to interpret the remote-sensing data that I was using, so I taught myself how to program in C and, more generally, how to manipulate the binary data that I was using. During this time my interest was held less and less by the research itself and more and more by the programming and data manipulation that enabled the research and made it presentable.
Upon finishing my master's degree in 1988, I was offered a position at NASA/Goddard by Dr. Gene Feldman who thought my computer skills and knowledge of oceanography could be of use to NASA's nascent ocean color program. Since then, I have been making remotely-sensed data more accessible to the oceanographic community by designing and building browsing programs first for the CZCS mission and then SeaWiFS and the several others that have followed. I also create imagery from our data holdings that are used both by NASA and outside organizations and researchers.
Refereed
Franz, B. A., S. W. Bailey, N. A. Kuring, and J. Werdell. 2015. "Ocean color measurements with the Operational Land Imager on Landsat-8: implementation and evaluation in SeaDAS."
Journal of Applied Remote Sensing
9
(1):
096070
[10.1117/I.JRS.9.096070]
Siegel, D. A., B. Behrenfeld, S. Maritorena, et al. 2013. "Regional to global assessments of phytoplankton dynamics from the SeaWiFS mission."
Remote Sensing of Environment
135
77-91
[10.1016/j.rse.2013.03.025]
Eckardt, F. D., and N. Kuring. 2005. "SeaWiFS identifies dust sources in the Namib Desert."
Int J Remote Sens
26
(19):
4159-4167
Acker, J. G., N. Kuring, C. W. Brown, A. C. Hine, and E. Armstrong. 2002. "Satellite remote sensing observations and aerial photography of storm-induced neritic carbonate transport from shallow carbonate platforms."
International Journal of Remote Sensing
23
(14):
2853-2868
[10.1080/01431160110106122]
Holben, B. N., N. A. Kuring, G. C. Feldman, et al. 2001. "Asian dust events of April 1998."
Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
106
(D16):
18317–18330
[10.1029/2000JD900788]
Kuring, N., M. R. Lewis, T. Platt, and J. E. O'Reilly. 1990. "Satellite-derived estimates of primary production on the northwest Atlantic continental shelf."
Continental Shelf Research
10
(5):
461-484
[10.1016/0278-4343(90)90050-V]
Kuring, N., M. R. Lewis, and C. Yentsch. 1988. "Global patterns of ocean transparency: Implications for the new production of the open ocean."
Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans
93
(C6):
6847–6856
[10.1029/JC093iC06p06847]
