astronomy

Richard Doviak

Richard Doviak is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Richard Doviak rather than just read about it. In short: Richard James Doviak was an American engineer and university professor, pioneer of weather radar. He worked for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at the National Severe Storms Laboratory developing the NEXRAD radar array using reflectivity, the Doppler effect and the dual polarization to detect precipitation and its movement in clouds.

Key takeaways

Richard Doviak belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Richard Doviak to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Richard Doviak from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Richard James Doviak was an American engineer and university professor, pioneer of weather radar. He worked for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at the National Severe Storms Laboratory developing the NEXRAD radar array using reflectivity, the Doppler effect and the dual polarization to detect precipitation and its movement in clouds. He is also the co-author with Dusan S. Zrnic of the reference book “Doppler Radar and Weather Observations” about modern weather radar and its use.

Biography Richard was born on December 24, 1933, to John and Victoria Doviak. He grew up in New Jersey, where he studied through high school. He then attended Fairleigh Dickinson University, in the same state, before continuing at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute from New York State and received his bachelor's degree in 1956. Thanks to a scholarship, he then completed a master's degree and then a doctorate in electrical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania (UoP), obtained in 1963. Doviak then served as assistant professor of Electromagnetic Theory, Wave Propagation, and Scattering in Turbulent Media at UoP from 1963 to 1971. He was also a principal investigator at the Valley Forge Research Center from 1967, conducting experiments measuring the forward scattering and backscattering of electromagnetic waves in the cloudless troposphere. He moved to Oklahoma in 1972 to direct the weather radar program at the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) in Norman, Oklahoma. There he directed the Doppler weather radar project from 1971 to 1987 which led to the development of the NEXRAD network, covering the entire United States since 1990, and which is an essential tool for detection of dangerous meteorological phenomena. His team also possibly developed the first-ever real-time Doppler velocity radar display for a weather radar in 1972, according to Doviak. Doviak later participated in the development of the Polarimetric Weather Radar. This technology, added during the 2010s to NEXRAD, provides National Weather Service forecasters with a measurement of the size and shape of targets like hail. While at the NSSL, he became an assistant professor with the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the School of Meteorology at the University of Oklahoma. He never retired but continued to write articles, to speak at conferences around the world, and advise generations of meteorologists at the University of Oklahoma. For example, shortly before his death, Doviak completed a project with scientists in Hong Kong studying the detection of lightning. He died of cancer on March 12, 2021, at the age of 87. His funeral took place at Saint-Thomas More Roman Catholic Parish in Norman, Oklahoma.

Publications He has published, as author or co-author, numerous scientific articles in more than 20 journals covering his interests in the fields of geosciences, engineering, physics, and meteorology. His best-known book is Doppler Radar and Weather Observations, co-written with Dusan S. Zrnic, which has become a reference in the field. He was guest editor for a special issue of the IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing (TGRS) in 1979, on the topic of radar meteorology; associate editor of the Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology of the AMS from 1984 to 1988, and of Applied Meteorology from 1977 to 1980; finally editor-in-chief of the TGRS from 1988 to 1991.

Recognition and affiliations Doviak was a member of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies (CIMMS) at the University of Oklahoma. He was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 1988 and of the AMS in 1999. He has received the following awards:

1980 and 1982 NOAA Outstanding Scientific Publications Award; 1981 NASA Prize for his group's achievement on Doppler lidar; 1988 IEEE Harry Diamond Memorial Award for Outstanding Contribution to Public Service; 1993 Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society Outstanding Service Award; 2014 NOAA Distinguished Career Award for the development of weather radar and the interpretation of its data; 2016 AMS Remote Sensing Award “for fundamental contributions to the science and technology of weather radar, with applications to the observation of severe storms and tropospheric winds.” He also won a gold medal at the Oklahoma Senior Olympics in cycling.

References

External links

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Richard Doviak

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Richard Doviak claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Richard Doviak before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Richard Doviak ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Richard Doviak

In research: Richard Doviak appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Richard Doviak in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Richard Doviak is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1933 births, 2021 deaths, 20th-century American engineers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Richard Doviak outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Richard Doviak in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Richard Doviak means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Richard Doviak out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Richard Doviak in simple terms?

Why does Richard Doviak matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Richard Doviak?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Richard Doviak.