{"id":4682,"date":"2018-02-20T08:00:50","date_gmt":"2018-02-20T14:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/nsslnews\/?p=4682"},"modified":"2018-02-20T09:48:37","modified_gmt":"2018-02-20T15:48:37","slug":"exploring-past-present-future-qa-with-dusan-zrnic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/nsslnews\/2018\/02\/exploring-past-present-future-qa-with-dusan-zrnic\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring past, present & future: Q&A with Dusan Zrnic"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Dusan<\/a>
Dusan Zrnic.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

During the month of February, NSSL will feature some of its longest-serving employees. Those employees will share their favorite experiences through the years, and highlight some of the most significant changes they have witnessed.<\/p>\n

Dusan Zrnic is a senior research scientist at the NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory, where he has worked for more than 40 years. Zrnic has published extensively on weather radar and is co-author of the book Doppler Radar and Weather Observations<\/a> with NSSL\u2019s Dick Doviak. He is a Fellow with both the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and the American Meteorological Society, and has received numerous awards and honors including the 2004 Presidential Rank Award.<\/p>\n

Q: How did you get into your field?<\/strong>
\nA: I was proficient in math and physics so engineering seems to match these attributes and provided a stable career with good income, thus I chose electrical, also to distance myself from my father\u2019s mechanical engineering degree.<\/p>\n

Q: Describe the path leading up to your current job.<\/strong>
\nA: I had an academic position at California State University, Northridge. I applied to the National Research Council for a year-long visiting post-doc position at NSSL. I liked the work there and a few years later took a permanent job at NSSL.<\/p>\n

\"Dusan<\/a>
Dusan Zrnic said the experience portrayed in this photo “forged me. It gave me inspiration to finish things.” Here he is building his parent’s summer house in the mid-1950s.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n


\nQ:What are you most proud of during your time at NSSL or what is the most significant achievement of your career?<\/strong>
\nA: Work on dual polarization and its adoption by the NOAA National Weather Service as an upgrade to the network of WSR-88D, or NEXRAD, radars.
\n
\nQ: What is it about your job that interests and engages you?<\/strong>
\nA: Novel problems and struggles to resolve these, interaction with other professionals in the National Weather Center building, and with students. To top this the weather radar is an example of a military technology applied to the good of all, friend and foe (who sooner than later becomes a friend).<\/p>\n

Q: What is the most significant advancement in your field during your time at NOAA?<\/strong>
\nA: In weather radars, it is dual polarization. Find out more here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Q: Tell us something that might surprise us about you.<\/strong>
\nA: My intellectual affinity is toward engineering, curiosity toward science, but love toward arts.<\/p>\n

\"Zrnic<\/a>
Zrnic enjoys skiing and recently took a ride on the slopes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Q: What is the most memorable experience of your career?<\/strong>
\nA: Two experiences on the same subject. The first real time computation and display of the polarimetric variables as we know these today obtained with the NSSL-operated Cimarron radar in the alternate mode of horizontally\/vertically polarized waves in 1992. And the first dual pol data in the simultaneous mode obtained with the WSR-88D on the Norman KOUN radar in 2002. These results were above expectations and I still keep the images and show them at various workshops\/meetings\/courses.<\/p>\n

Q: What is your personal philosophy?<\/strong>
\nA: In everything you do \u2014 work, sport, love \u2014 give it your 150 percent.<\/p>\n

Q: Where is your favorite place to be?<\/strong>
\nA: Winter, knee deep powder snow on top of a ridge ready to glide.<\/p>\n

Q: How do you define success?<\/strong>
\nA: If your expectations are met.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dusan Zrnic is a senior research scientist at the NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory, where he has worked for more than 40 years. Zrnic has published extensively on weather radar and says two experiences are the most memorable of his career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":4686,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","ghostkit_customizer_options":"","ghostkit_custom_css":"","ghostkit_custom_js_head":"","ghostkit_custom_js_foot":"","ghostkit_typography":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[636,622,326,611],"class_list":["post-4682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-dusan-zrnic","tag-featured","tag-noaa-heritage-week","tag-qa"],"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/nsslnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/nsslnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/nsslnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/nsslnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/nsslnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4682"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/nsslnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4695,"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/nsslnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4682\/revisions\/4695"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/nsslnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/nsslnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/nsslnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/nsslnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}