Elizabeth Smith

Elizabeth (Liz) Smith

Executive Director

Chesapeake Bay Observing System

Center for Coastal Physical Oceanography/ODU

Crittenton Hall/768 W52nd Street

Norfolk, VA 23529

Tel. (757) 683 5842

Fax. (757) 683 5555

exsmith@odu.edu

Liz is the Interim Co-Director (Southern) of the Chesapeake Bay Observing System (CBOS), and a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Ocean, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Old Dominion University. She has a particular interest in developing an Education and Outreach plan for the Chesapeake Bay Observing System including facilitating the use of observing system data by educators.

Liz is involved in activities that bring current oceanographic data and research into the classroom. With colleagues from NASA and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, she developed Studying Earth’s Environment from Space—CD-ROMs and Web Site which contain classroom resources and computer labs for students in grades 9-12 studying earth sciences (http://see.gsfc.nasa.gov/education/SEES/index.html ). The labs provide an opportunity for students to explore research-quality satellite data of the oceans, atmosphere and solid earth to learn about the basic constructs of earth system science. Liz also conducts training workshops for high school and college instructors on the use of Studying Earth’s Environment from Space in their classrooms. She also co-directs the Virginia Regional Competition of the National Ocean Sciences Bowl, called the Blue Crab Bowl. The Blue Crab Bowl is an annual academic competition among high school students in Virginia concerning all aspects of oceanography (http://www.nosb.org ). The 10^th Annual Blue Crab Bowl will take place in February 2007 at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

Before coming to Old Dominion University in 1993, Liz spent 6 years on the Technical Staff at the California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory working on the early generations of satellite oceanographic data systems. She was the Project Scientist for the NASA Ocean Data System and the Physical Oceanography Active Archive System and later the Project Manager for the NASA-funded AVHRR Sea Surface Temperature Pathfinder data reprocessing project. Liz has a BS in Marine Science from the University of South Carolina and an MS in Oceanography with a specialization in Physical Oceanography from the Florida State University.