Julia Engdahl, recent RUCOOL Masters in Oceanography graduate, won the NOAA Professional Excellence Award during her first year as a contractor for NOAA CO-OPS (Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services). NOAA CO-OPS Director, Richard Edwing, said the following:
This award provides recognition for outstanding accomplishment in furthering CO-OPS’ mission through exceptional dedication or innovative approaches to their work while advancing morale among fellow employees. The Individual Award for Professional Excellence goes to: Julia Engdahl, OD (Lynker) Julia is being recognized for the professional excellence she has demonstrated in her first year as a Lynker contractor with CO-OPS. Her diverse contributions to CO-OPS and NOAA include providing quality control of water level and currents data; supporting the weekly Gain and Offset Backup Analysis, or GOBA, report; sharing her impressive coding skills; innovating product and process improvements; assisting with Software Carpentry workshops; and serving as the Executive Secretariat for NOAA AI Executive Committee and the Coordinator for the NOS AI Working Group. Julia’s leadership and support of CO-OPS CODE team activities has been exemplary. She has eagerly shared her skills with others and led and collaborated on multiple innovative coding projects; like converting microwave water level comparison scripts to Python, and bringing creativity to the Santa Monica Digital Display Project. One of Julia’s best known contributions to CO-OPS is her use of animated GIFs for the representation of water level and sea level trend data. Julia’s accomplishments are extensive and impressive, but even more so when considering that she was hired only 13 months ago – during the pandemic and without the benefits of in-person training, guidance, or collaboration. We are thankful to have you on board and looking forward to even more innovation. Congratulations Julia!