Research

Established in 2001 through a major grant funded by NOAA’s Office of Education’ Educational Partnership Program, CREST is led by The City University of New York and brings together Hampton University, University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, Bowie State University, University of Maryland Baltimore County, and Columbia University. The mission of NOAA-CREST Center is to serve as a NOAA Center of Excellence in Remote Sensing Science & Technology - one of its kinds in the entire East region of the country. Together with lead partnership with several CUNY campuses and Industries like Raytheon & Northrop Grumman, CREST will contribute to the development of world-class cadre of faculty, students and researchers that will gain knowledge and expertise in cutting-edge research in science; engineering and technology with special emphasis on satellites and remote sensing of the Earth. The Center’s research focuses on all aspects of remote sensing - sensor development, satellite remote sensing, ground-based field measurements, data processing and analysis, modeling, and forecasting. CREST recruits and train undergraduate, masters and doctoral students with a main focus on unrepresented minorities in NOAA related sciences and thus help increase the diversity in NOAA workforce. The program includes seminars, summer internships with NOAA, and with industrial partners, and school-year research assistantships. The overarching goal of CREST is to conduct research consistent with NOAA’s interests of environmental assessment, prediction and environmental stewardship. This research creates a framework to recruit and train undergraduate and graduate students especially from underrepresented communities for professional opportunities.