About me

I am the Assistant Director for NOAA Relations and a Senior Research Scientist with the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies (CIMMS) and a faculty member in the Advanced Radar Research Center (ARRC) at the University of Oklahoma (OU), where I am affiliated with the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL).

My background is in electrical engineering, and I have 22 years of experience in the field of weather radar signal processing. I am the leader of the Advanced Radar Techniques (ART) team within the Radar Research and Development Division at NSSL where I work on:

leading the implementation of advanced signal processing functions and adaptive scanning for the National Weather Radar Testbed (NWRT) Phased-Array Radar (PAR),
developing signal processing techniques to improve the quality and coverage of meteorological products from weather radars, and
transfering these technologies to the operational environment for the evolution of the US network of weather surveillance Doppler radars (NEXRAD).

For more information about me and/or the projects that I'm working on, please take a look at my resume/CV and/or visit my research page.

Hot Item: CIMMS/NSSL pioneering work on the NWRT PAR makes it into the Proceedings of the IEEE

The National Weather Radar Testbed (NWRT) is maintained and operated by NOAA's National Severe Storm Laboratory in Norman, OK. It is a phased array radar (PAR) that was established to evaluate the potential to perform aircraft and weather surveillance with a single, multifunction radar. The NWRT PAR is also being used to demonstrate advanced weather-surveillance concepts that are well suited to the unique capabilities offered by phased arrays.

IEEE Proceedings: Special Issue on Phased Array Technologies

The March 2016 Special Issue of the Proceedings of the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) features our pioneering work on the NWRT PAR. The editor introduces our work by saying "Much of the promise of MPAR is grounded in the work of Torres et al., who describe how the National Weather Radar Testbed, which is based on a decommissioned SPY-1 phased array radar, is bringing new perspectives to weather tracking and prediction."

The capabilities of the NWRT PAR described in this paper enable the radar to perform simultaneous weather- and aircraft-surveillance functions. Still, achieving multifunction while meeting all mission requirements remains one of the major challenges in the design of an MPAR system.

Please follow the link below to read our paper.

ARRC team receives second NSF award to investigate tonado debris

We recently received a second award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for our research project "Understanding the Relationship Between Tornadoes and Debris Through Observed and Simulated Radar Data."

NEXRAD class at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute

This fall, I had the honor and privilege to teach an OLLI class with my friend and colleague Jami Boettcher. "NEXRAD Weather Radar: How it Works and What Those Images Tell Us" kept us busy for 5 weeks this fall.

Paper makes the cover of IEEE journal

Our paper "Bootstrap Dual-Polarimetric Spectral Density Estimator" made the cover of the April 2017 issue of the IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing journal.

JTECH Associate Editor

I have accepted to serve as an associate editor for the American Meteorological Society’s Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology.

Outstanding Service Award

I have been chosen as the winner of the 2016 OU College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences Dean’s Award for Outstanding Service.