Conference Support for the Super Dual Auroral Radar Network Workshop 2025; Roanoke, Virginia; June 2025

The Super Dual Auroral Radar Network (SuperDARN) Workshop 2025 will be held in Roanoke, Virginia, in June 2025. SuperDARN is an international network of radars operated by science and engineering institutions located in more than a dozen countries worldwide. The network consists of over 30 low-power radars extending across three latitudinal tiers from mid-latitudes, through the auroral zone, and into the polar cap, in both hemispheres.

Four US universities, with Virginia Tech as lead institution, form a US SuperDARN collaboration that is funded by NSF. The SuperDARN array provides remotely sensed observations of various geophysical phenomena in the Earth’s upper atmosphere. These observations have contributed to significant advances in geospace research and plasma physics.

The annual workshop of the SuperDARN collaboration is an opportunity for SuperDARN researchers to coordinate on scheduling and operations, new technical developments, software and analysis, and scientific collaborations. The SuperDARN Workshop serves as an excellent platform to exchange ideas about recent trends and developments in SuperDARN operations and research.

The annual SuperDARN Workshop has a track record of fostering strong international collaborations with broad scientific and engineering impact, not only within the SuperDARN community, but across the entire space science discipline.

The Workshop proceeds as a conference with a sizable but manageable number of attendees. The sessions are held over a one-week period. The scientific sessions take place in a single conference room and are ordered thematically, for example ‘large-scale plasma convection’, ‘ultra-low frequency waves’, ‘atmospheric gravity waves and traveling ionospheric disturbances’, etc.

The SuperDARN collaboration is managed at the highest level by the SuperDARN Executive Council and working groups commissioned on an ongoing basis to manage tasks such as scheduling, software development, data distribution, and coordination with outside groups of researchers such as satellite mission teams. Attendance by graduate students and early career researchers will be supported.

Graduate students get exposure to both the operational and scientific aspects of SuperDARN, as well as to the broad range of research activities carried out by the global SuperDARN community. The Workshop also serves as an excellent platform for both students and early-career researchers to develop collaborations, work on new research avenues, and explore new exciting career paths.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.