NSF and ARDC Grants Support HamSCI Workshop

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a nearly $50,000 grant to Nathaniel Frissell, Ph.D., assistant professor physics and electrical engineering at The University of Scranton, to support “The Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation (HamSCI) Workshop 2023.” He also received a grant of just over $25,000 from Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC) to support the workshop. The HamSCI Workshop 2023 will take place Mar. 17 and 18 at The University of Scranton and the historic Radisson at Lackawanna Station.

“The HamSCI Workshop plays a unique and important role in the development of both the amateur radio community and the scientific workforce,” said Dr. Frissell, who noted there are more than 770,000 licensed ham radio operators in the U. S. and about 3 million worldwide. “Each year, the workshop brings together many young student researchers and experienced scientists, engineers and amateur radio operators in an environment where they can share ideas and learn from each other.”

The HamSCI is a collective of professional researchers and licensed amateur radio operators (a.k.a. hams) with the objective to foster collaborations between the amateur and professional communities for the purposes of advancing scientific research and understanding, encouraging the development of new technologies to support this research, and to provide educational opportunities for the amateur radio community and the general public.

“Dr. Frissell is doing incredible work at The University of Scranton, performing cutting-edge scientific research while educating future scientists. The workshop funded by this grant will bring some of the brightest scientific minds to Scranton, and I am sure it will be a weekend of great collaboration and discussion. As the Ranking Member of the Commerce Justice and Science Subcommittee, I am proud to help fund projects like this one through the National Science Foundation, and I admire Dr. Frissell’s efforts to put Northeastern Pennsylvania on the map through his scientific endeavors,” said U.S. Rep. Matt Cartwright. 

The workshop will include talks from prominent leaders in radio science, space science and space weather from both the professional and amateur communities, as well as research abstracts related to the latest developments related radio science and amateur radio, including those related to solar eclipse ionospheric effects, Sporadic E, traveling ionospheric disturbances (TIDs), and space and terrestrial weather impacts to radio propagation.

Dr. Frissell noted that the 2023 HamSCI Workshop is particularly important and timely for the HamSCI community in order to prepare for the upcoming annular solar eclipse on Oct. 14, 2023, and the total solar eclipse on Apr. 8, 2024. “Both eclipses have paths that sweep across the continental United States and are the last solar eclipses to traverse this area until 2044, and are therefore important, time-sensitive, in- formation rich opportunities for running unique and “controlled” ionospheric experiments,” said Dr. Frissell.

The workshop will serve as a team meeting for the HamSCI Personal Space Weather Station project, which is a $1.3 million NSF funded project previously awarded to Dr. Frissell. The project seeks to harness the power of a network of licensed amateur radio operators to better understand and measure the effects of weather in the upper levels of Earth’s atmosphere. In August 2021, Dr. Frissell received a six-figure grant through the NASA’s Space Weather Applications Operations 2 Research Program for the research project “Enabling Space Weather Research with Global Scale Amateur Radio Datasets.

Speakers for the HamSCI Workshop 2023 include a keynote presentation by Patricia Reiff, Ph.D., (W5TAR) professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Rice University and founding director of the Rice Space Institute. She will discuss “Forging Amateur-Professional Bonds.” Joseph Huba, Ph.D., vice president of Syntek Technologies and former head of the Space Plasma Physics Section at the Naval Research Laboratory, will discuss “Modeling the Ionosphere with SAMI3.” (SAMI3 models the plasma and chemical evolution of seven ion species.) Also, Jesse Alexander (WB2IFS/3), a licensed amateur radio operator, will discuss his efforts to introduce young people to the wonder of the Electromagnetic Spectrum through hands-on ham radio based experiences.

In addition, the Murgas Amateur Radio club from NEPA will showcase old amateur radios in an “Amateur Radio Through the Ages” exhibit in the display cases on the second floor of Loyola Science Center.

Dr. Frissell talks about the workshop in this WVIA podcast.

Registration and additional information about the conference, which is offered in an in-person and virtual format, can be found on the HamSCI Workshop 2023 webpage.