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Jason Tackett (NASA)

Title: Research Physical Scientist
Technical Focus Area: Atmospheric Composition, Lidar Science
Mission/Project: CALIPSO
Study Topics: Aerosol composition, wildfire smoke impacts, pyrocumulonimbus events, volcanic ash, disasters, active remote sensing retrievals.

About:

Jason Tackett works for the CALIPSO mission, developing and validating science algorithms for the CALIOP lidar. His expertise is active remote sensing techniques that characterize aerosol optical properties, aerosol spatial variability, and aerosol types in Earth’s atmosphere. Mr. Tackett is the lead algorithm designer for the CALIOP level 3 aerosol products and stratospheric aerosol typing algorithm. His research interests are characterizing wildfire smoke in the atmosphere, including pyrocumulonimbus events, and volcanic plume detection using lidar.

Publication Bibliography:

Select Publications/Reports:

  • Tackett, J. L., D. M. Winker, B. J. Getzewich, M. A. Vaughan, S. A. Young and J. Kar, 2018: “CALIPSO lidar level 3 aerosol profile product: version 3 algorithm design”, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 4129-4152, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-4129-2018.
  • Tackett, J. L., and L. Di Girolamo, 2009: “Enhanced aerosol backscatter adjacent to tropical trade wind clouds revealed by satellite-based lidar”, Geophys. Res. Lett., 36, L14804, https://doi.org/10.1029/2009GL039264.

Related Websites:

Notable Awards:

  • NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal (2017), “For development of a comprehensive suite of retrieval algorithms essential to CALIPSO Level 3 aerosol data product to improve air-quality assessments”
  • Editor’s Citation for Excellence in Refereeing for Geophysical Research Letters (2013)

Professional Memberships:

  • American Geophysical Union

Education/Professional Experience:

  • Research Physical Scientist, NASA Langley Research Center, 2019 – present
  • Senior Research Scientist, Science Systems and Applications, Inc. (STARSS contract with NASA), 2009 – 2019
  • M.S. Atmospheric Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • B.S. Physics, Kansas State University, 2007
  • A.S. Computer Systems Technology, Kansas State University, 2004

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