Company Profile

Company Overview

The Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) was established in 1980 by a small group of research universities to bid on the construction of a national Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF). SURA and its 23 member universities were subsequently selected by a joint Department of Energy-National Science Foundation committee to design, build and operate what the Washington Post described in 1983 as "the most advanced experimental nuclear physics facility in the world."

Today, SURA consists of over 60 member universities and CEBAF is now known as the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab). SURA continues to operate the Jefferson Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy through Jefferson Science Associates, LLC, a SURA/PAE joint venture. SURA also operates the SURA Residence Facility, guest house to accommodate national and international researchers who come to use Jefferson Lab's unique facilities. SURA's intramural research activities are collaborations with its member institutions, government agencies, and other researchers working to advance and exploit the transformative nature of information technology on the regional, national and international fronts, and facilitating a better understanding of coastal, ocean and environmental phenomena that plays a prominent role in our lives.

With funding from NOAA's U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System Program, SURA has facilitated strategic collaborations to build and guide the Coastal and Ocean Modeling Testbed (COMT). The initial, $4 million grant to support the vision of distributed, open-access, community science was awarded in 2010, with renewal funding ever since. The overarching goal of the COMT is to accelerate the transfer of research and development to improve operational coastal ocean modeling and forecasting skill. SURA is advancing the COMT to evaluate the readiness of coastal and marine forecasts, such as flooding from storm surge and seasonal dead zones. Focused along the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf of Mexico coasts, the COMT will improve forecasts used by emergency managers and other decision-makers, scientific researchers and the public.