Operational Products Development Branch
Research Scientist
Recent Publications
To see Mr. Chalfant's complete list of publications, abstracts, and citation metrics, visit his
ResearcherID page.
Mike Chalfant was born in Los Angeles, California September 15,
1942 and attended school there through the 6th grade. Junior High School
and High School matriculation was in Anaheim, California. Undergraduate education
was started at Fullerton State College (current name), Los Angeles State College
(current name) and the University of California at Los Angeles, prior to
transferring to the University of California at Berkley. During the summers I
either worked for the Department of Agriculture or Department of Defense.
In 1965 I received a Bachelors of Science degree in Civil Engineering, from UC
Berkeley and went to work for the State of California Division of Bay Toll
Crossings as a Civil Engineer.
I joined the National Ocean Survey (predecessor of ESSA and later NOAA), in
the fall of 1965, where I worked as a hydrographer making nautical charts of
Hawaii, Alaska and California. I was then stationed at NESS (predecessor of
NESDIS), at Suitland in 1967. My first efforts at NESS were to assist Dr.
Donald Hillary, Dr. David Wark, Henry Fleming and Fredric Van Cleef with the
programming of a product processing system for SIRS-A (first atmospheric
temperature and moisture sounding system). Work continued on the
NIMBUS follow-on spacecraft sounding systems for SIRS-B, ITPR, NEMS and
SCR followed by HIRS/1 and SCAMS on NIMBUS-6.
I was sponsored by NESDIS for a year of graduate study at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology where I worked toward my Masters in Business
Administration (Operations Research – design of large software
and hardware computer processing systems, modeling, decision analysis
and statistics). When I returned to NESDIS, at Suitland in 1977,
I started working as part of a team for the design and development of the
TOVS sounding system, using instrumentation onboard the TIROS-N spacecraft.
This work has continued and expanded so as to include the generation of
HIRS Spectral Response Functions; validation of spacecraft instrument
performance; troubleshooting of NESDIS' front-end instrument calibration
and earth location processing; and design, development and checkout of
the ATOVS sounding system supporting the new instrumentation onboard NOAA-15
(launched in May 1998). After successfully supporting the launch and
operational processing of 17 consecutive spacecraft, current work on
ATOVS is in support of the NOAA-N (18) spacecraft, which is scheduled for
launch in March 2005. Science algorithm development, in support of improved
and/or new products, includes three new algorithms for the retrieval of
stratus Cloud Amount and an algorithm for removal of Cloud Liquid Water
contamination from AMSU-A ch #4.
Degrees earned:
Bachelors of Science in Civil Engineering, UC Berkeley 1965
Dept. of Commerce • NOAA • NESDIS • STAR • Last revised: March 15, 2012
Mike Chalfant
Mike Chalfant was born in Los Angeles, California September 15,
1942 and attended school there through the 6th grade. Junior High School
and High School matriculation was in Anaheim, California. Undergraduate education
was started at Fullerton State College (current name), Los Angeles State College
(current name) and the University of California at Los Angeles, prior to
transferring to the University of California at Berkley. During the summers I
either worked for the Department of Agriculture or Department of Defense.
In 1965 I received a Bachelors of Science degree in Civil Engineering, from UC
Berkeley and went to work for the State of California Division of Bay Toll
Crossings as a Civil Engineer.