Dr. Ying-Hwa william Kuo is the Director of UCAR Community Programs. The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) is a non-profit consortium of 120 North American member colleges and universities focused on research and training in the atmospheric and related Earth System Sciences. UCAR manages the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), with the sponsorship of the National Science Foundation. UCAR Community Programs provide education, training, data, and science support services to the broad Earth science community.

Dr. Kuo started his career as an NCAR scientist working on mesoscale meteorological modeling. He was responsible for the development of the 4^th and 5^th generation of the NCAR/PSU Mesoscale Model, known as MM4 and MM5. He was a major contributor to the development of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model and its data assimilation systems. Dr. Kuo served as the Director of the Developmental Testbed Center (DTC) from 2009 to 2018. In that capacity, he interacted closely with research and operational numerical weather prediction (NWP) communities to facilitate the transition of new NWP advances into operations. From 1997 through 2015, Dr. Kuo served as the Director of the UCAR COSMIC (Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate) Program. COSMIC was a joint Taiwan-U.S. satellite mission, which was called FORMOSAT-3 in Taiwan. COSMIC was the world’s first GPS radio occultation satellite constellation, which provides critical observations to support atmospheric research and operational weather prediction. Dr. Kuo played a key role in the development and execution of the follow-on mission, FORMOSAT-7/COSMIC‑2, which was launched in June 2019. Dr. Kuo served as the U.S. Project Director for the Taiwan Area Mesoscale Experiment (TAMEX) from 1985 – 1993. TAMEX was the first major meteorological field experiment in East Asia focused on the study of mesoscale convective systems during the Mei-Yu season.

Dr. Kuo was appointed as an NCAR Senior Scientist in 1995. He has served as the NCAR advisor for more than 25 graduate students and mentored more than 20 postdoctoral fellows. He has published over 200 journal papers, as well as numerous conference articles and reports. His scientific interests include hurricanes, extratropical cyclones, mesoscale convective systems, heavy rainfall prediction, data assimilation, and GPS atmospheric remote sensing and their research applications.