IEDRO Volunteers
IEDRO is run by volunteers. If you appreciate our work, please join us in our effort to rescue important environmental data before it’s too late.
IEDRO Leadership
To view IEDRO's volunteer leadership roster and staff biographies, click here.
Persons listed below in bold type have been our most active volunteers for over a year through regular attendance on our conference calls or working behind the scenes on IEDRO tasks.
IEDRO Principal Volunteers
Ed Root D.Sc, Ed Root, D.Sc, is a sustainable earth visionary with a love for math and science and five decades experience in information systems, aerospace science, and operations research. His work in scientific computing includes systems analysis, programming, architectural design, mathematical modeling, maintenance, and building computers from the vacuum-tube/transistor to the integrated-circuit level. While a member of the IEDRO, Ed singlehandedly constructed a computer program to digitize analog hydro-meteorological charts. Ed left our staff in 2010. We owe Ed an enormous debt of gratitude.
Larry Nicodemus recently retired from the position of Technical Manager at International Environmental Data Rescue Organization, Larry brings his experience as a Meteorologist at the National Climatic Data Center to help IEDRO develop and maintain its rescue projects. He has been helping Ed Root in his development of software that will aide IEDRO more rapidly digitize historic data.
email Larry Nicodemus
Director of Technology Requirements Jean-Paul Miller has been a volunteer with IEDRO since 2005. A computer scientist and web-based video game programmer in PHP and AS3, he currently is a C++ Programmer/Database Analyst. Recently, he has been addressing infrastructure issues at the corporate headquarters of IEDRO.
For nearly five years, Martin Mwanangwa Munkhondya has been Senior Assistant Meteorologist for the Malawi National Meteorological Service. Thanks to the generosity of the Service’s Director, Mr. Donald Kamdonyo, Martin has been our project manager for data rescue and digitization efforts in Africa. In this capacity, Martin has established and maintained data rescue sites in Kenya, Mozambique, Niger, Senegal, Tanzania and Zambia in addition to the ongoing project in his home country, Malawi. Through Martin’s efforts over 300,000 upper-air observations have been rescued from Africa.
Josh Wexler , Manager of Weather Wizards, earned a BS in Geography from Appalachian State in 2003, and December 2012, he plans to complete his MS in Earth Science, Climatology from UNC-Charlotte. His passion is protecting the environment for future generations. He recently worked at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in the Climate Data Recovery Program which was eliminated in budget cuts. He was seeking to start his own climate recovery business, which led him to IEDRO.
Ran Meng , graduated from McGill University in 2008 as a Biochemistry undergraduate with an English minor. She has worked as a research technician and has divided passions for writing and science. Joining IEDRO in 2011 as a managing editor, she has worked with other volunteers to develop and publish our bi-monthly e-newsletter.
Tommy Owens, Manager, IEDRO Strip Chart Digitization Program, joined IEDRO in October 2010. Tommy earned a BS in Meteorology from Pennsylvania State in 1999 and an MS in Environmental Science and Policy from Johns Hopkins in 2008. He has worked for SAIC as a software engineer at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt MD since 1999 where has been developing operational software for the Data Assimilation Office and the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office.
Dario Di Franco, Dario joined IEDRO's family in 2009 as a Spanish translator. Today, he is our translation manager, overseeing teams of French, Italian, Mandarin, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese and German translators. He works with teams to translate our website and newsletters. We also are planning to add Dario to our project site management team in South America. Currently, Dario is attending Lanús National University in Argentina, and expects to graduate with a degree in Translation Studies at the end of 2012. He's a language lover, trying hard to become a polyglot, learning bits of Chinese, Japanese and French. Besides languages, he loves writing and traveling, and he wishes to combine those two into his lifestyle.
Volunteer Memorials
For volunteer memorials, click here.