UNC Asheville’s NEMAC – “Transforming data into decisions to address society’s emerging new realities”
UNC Asheville’s National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Center (NEMAC) was established in November 2003. NEMAC is an applied research group that thrives due to its collaborations and students. NEMAC research team starts with data sets tied to weather, climate, forest health, water resources and a variety of related issues.  We then examine the interaction of humanity’s infrastructure with the environment to address issues including hazard mitigation, climate change, competitive land use, and the wise use of our energy and water resources. We address these issues by creating decision support tools that are designed to be easily understood and used by policy makers and the general public. 
NEMAC Mission statement

• Conducts interdisciplinary applied research to address the challenges and opportunities of human interaction with the environment.
• Supports the university’s mission by promoting collaborations between the university, its students and faculty, and the community.
• Applies research to integrate data, create visualizations, convey meaning through story telling and provide decision support tools to address the issues that impact our society.
• Fosters active partnerships with academic, governmental, commercial and community organizations.

We are strategically focused and tied to several key metrics –

• Integrate our data and stories into our audience’s value system
• Start with education and outreach, but follow with decision support tools
• Apply these tools at a county level by working with our local decision makers to find solutions
• Fit our audience’s needs by creating tools that work not only in meetings, but also available for individual use through the internet.

NEMAC’s current projects are the RENCI at UNC Asheville Engagement Site, EFETAC, the Southern Appalachian Report Card on Sustainability, CERO, and the Hub Technology Cluster.   We have received almost $8 million in funding over the past five years.  To highlight the importance of collaboration, over $3 million of these funds has gone directly to community collaborators.

Partners and Collaborators include the State of North Carolina through the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI), the USDA Forest Service, NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, The City of Asheville, Buncombe County, The Asheville Hub, the Applied Visualization Lab, RiverLink, NC Arboretum, Colburn Earth Science Museum, Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College and many others.

Students are a key part of NEMAC and work alongside our research professionals.  We have had over seventy students since 2003, many who have gone on to work at local employers including NCDC, the USDA Forest Service, Land of Sky Regional Council and many others.