ERAU Undergraduate Pursuing BS In Applied Meteorology
Embry-Riddle student Daniel J. Halperin has been named the FAA
Student Researcher of the Year in the FAA's Center of Excellence
(COE) for General Aviation.
The Federal Aviation Administration established the COE for
General Aviation in 2001, with Embry-Riddle as the lead
institution. Halperin competed against students from the other COE
for General Aviation member schools -- Florida A&M University,
University of Alaska, University of North Dakota, and Wichita State
University -- to win this FAA award that recognizes outstanding
achievement in transportation research and education.
The FAA program director of the COE for General Aviation, Dr.
Pat Watts, honored Halperin at a recent ceremony on the
University's Daytona Beach campus.
Halperin, a 20-year-old senior who's pursuing a BS in Applied
Meteorology with a Research concentration, has been active at
Embry-Riddle with the Center for General Aviation Research (CGAR),
a research consortium of the Center of Excellence schools,
industry, and government.
For CGAR, and under the supervision of Dr. Massoud Bazargan,
chair of the Management, Marketing, and Operations Department in
the University's College of Business, Halperin assisted an
FAA-funded research project titled "Development of an Aviation
Weather Database Highlighting Weather Encounters (Phase I)." This
ongoing project meshes the talents of researchers from
Embry-Riddle, Clemson University, and the FAA's Civil Aerospace
Medical Institute.
"Although he's an undergraduate, Dan performed first-rate
graduate-level work, collecting and analyzing data on selected
cases in which general aviation pilots encountered hazardous
weather," said Bazargan. "This consolidated data lays the
groundwork for improving our understanding of how we can train
pilots to keep a weather encounter from turning into an
accident."
As a follow-up
to his aviation weather research, Halperin co-authored a paper
titled "Developing Proactive Methods for General Aviation Data
Collection," that ERAU proudly notes was submitted to the 80th
annual Aerospace Medical Association conference.
Halperin is a past president of the local American
Meteorological Society /National Weather Association student
chapter and led a contingent of 12 students to the recent eighth
annual AMS Student Conference. There he presented a paper titled
"Lagrangian Satellite Imagery," detailing his proposal for a new
kind of satellite image display that could more accurately analyze
tropical weather systems.
"I'm planning to attend graduate school for further study and
research in applied meteorology," Halperin said. "As for my career
plans, I'd like to contribute to our knowledge of tropical storms,
ideally as a hurricane hunter."
Halperin is a graduate of Spanish River Community High School in
Boca Raton, FL. His mother, Patrice Horn, lives in Boca Raton, and
his father, Maury Halperin, lives in Ft. Lauderdale.