OES Spring Seminar - Ginny Selz

For more than 40 years, the series has fostered connection among current and future professionals. Seminars are held most Thursdays at 3 p.m. during the fall and spring semesters. For information, email Margie Mulholland at mmulholl@odu.edu.

Biography

Dr. Ginny (Virginia) Selz manages the Climate Variability and Predictability Program (CVP) for NOAA's Climate Program Office, Earth System Science and Modeling Division. In this role she works with the science community and agency partners to develop competitive research initiatives and build communities of practice across disciplines that enhance our process-level understanding and improve modeling of the climate system. Her current portfolio with the CVP program focuses on topics that span Earth System processes, predictability, and variability, with priorities focused on advancing NOAA's grand challenges on Precipitation Prediction, Coastal Inundation, and Climate-Ready Fisheries.

In addition to her primary work, Ginny is an enthusiastic proponent of NOAA student and professional training opportunities. She serves as the Federal program manager and liaison to NOAA's Climate and Global Change postdoctoral fellowship, and hosts or advises undergraduate and graduate students through NOAA's Lapenta internship, Hollings Scholar, and Sea Grant Knauss fellowship programs.

Ginny brings a broad perspective to science program management with prior experience at NOAA's Climate Observations and Monitoring program, the National Science Foundation's Division of Ocean Sciences, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Research Competitiveness Program, working on initiatives across STEM. Ginny holds a PhD from Stanford University in Earth System Science, where her research focused on how changing sea ice conditions impact phytoplankton and ice algal communities in polar regions using a combination of fieldwork, remote sensing, and modeling. She received a M.S. in Biology from Western Washington University and a B.S in Ocean, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences from Old Dominion University.

Abstract

Developing Science Initiatives to Drive Advancements for NOAA's Mission

NOAA Climate Program Office plays a key role in advancing scientific understanding, monitoring, and prediction of climate and its impacts to enable effective decisions in support of NOAA's mission. For example in 2021, the office awarded 130 new grants and cooperative agreements, and results from funded work totaled over 500 peer-reviewed publications. This talk will explore ways in which NOAA CPO programs in its Earth System Science and Modeling Division develop and execute research initiatives to advance the NOAA mission of understanding and predicting changes in climate, weather, ocean and coasts; sharing that knowledge and information with others; and conserving and managing coastal and marine ecosystems and resources. This includes developing NOAA-wide grand challenges, working through mechanisms to gather input from the external science community, and coordinating across the Federal government. Additionally, I will discuss how these planning and coordination efforts are translated into Notice of Funding Opportunities, Task Forces, and other activities. Combined, these collaborative efforts incubate and advance foundational, applied, and interdisciplinary science and bring new expertise and high quality external research into NOAA. A focus will be on recent NOAA priorities: Precipitation Prediction Grand Challenge, Climate-Ready Marine Ecosystems and Fisheries, and Coastal Inundation at Climate Timescales. These examples will highlight ways in which the external community engages with CPO activities from the student to PI level.