Brett Raczka
Scientist IV at NSF NCAR - The National Center for Atmospheric Research
Sandy, Utah, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolBrett Raczka is a Scientist IV at NCAR who leads land data assimilation efforts within the Data Assimilation and Research Section and contributes to atmospheric DA for WRF, bringing a decade of experience at the intersection of software engineering and Earth system science. He helps develop and maintain the widely used open-source Data Assimilation Research Testbed (DART), with notable contributions adding CLM observation types like soil moisture and leaf area index and improving snow water equivalent repartitioning. His work advances ensemble DA across land, ocean, atmosphere, cryosphere and space weather, enabling better integration of satellite and in-situ observations into forecasting systems. Brett’s background spans academic roles—Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Utah and PhD-trained atmospheric scientist—to hands-on software domain expertise, bridging modeling, observation processing, and code development. Based in Sandy, Utah, he focuses on land–atmosphere coupling, hydrology and carbon monitoring with practical experience linking biosphere models to atmospheric transport. Colleagues rely on him for turning complex scientific needs into robust, community-grade DA software and tutorials.
10 years of coding experience
23 years of employment as a software developer
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology at Penn State UniversityBachelor of Science (B.S.), Chemical Engineering, Bachelor of Science (B.S.), Chemical Engineering at University of Notre Dame
Github Skills (7)
fortran10
netcdf10
computer-engineering9
climate-model9
cl8
documentation8
hdf7
Programming languages (2)
Github contributions (5)
NCAR/DART
May 2021 - Dec 2022
Data Assimilation Research Testbed
Role in this project:
Software Engineer (Data Assimilation / Domain Expert)
Software Engineer (Data Assimilation / Domain Expert)Contributions:2 releases, 104 reviews, 146 commits in 1 year 7 months
Contributions summary:Brett contributed to the DART (Data Assimilation Research Testbed) project, focusing on enhancements related to the Community Land Model (CLM) and also to the processing and conversion of observation data. Their work included implementing new observation types for soil moisture, leaf area index, and other environmental variables; and refining code related to the repartitioning of snow water equivalent within the CLM model. Further contributions encompassed improvements to the overall documentation of the CLM tutorial.
assimilationtestbeddata-assimilation
braczka/DART
May 2021 - Apr 2023
Data Assimilation Research Testbed
Contributions:2 pushes, 7 branches in 1 year 11 months
assimilationtestbeddata-assimilation
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