As Acting Chief of the GMD Aerosol Group, Dr. Sheridan's primary responsibility is to oversee the operation and data flow of the NOAA ESRL Global Federated Aerosol Network. The goals of this surface aerosol monitoring program are to characterize means, variability, and trends of climate-forcing properties of different types of aerosols, and to understand the factors that control these properties. The measurements from this network provide critical ground-truth for satellite measurements, as well as key aerosol parameters for global-scale models. The Federated Network consists of aerosol monitoring systems located at the six NOAA Baseline Observatories and over 20 regional monitoring stations operated around the world by collaborating scientists. In this network, NOAA supplies proven designs and protocols for aerosol sampling infrastructure, standard operating procedures, GMD-developed and supported data acquisition, processing, visualization, editing, and archiving software, and technical expertise and troubleshooting assistance. The collaborators cover all of the long-term station costs (e.g., site, power, internet, instruments, technicians, etc.). The result is a long-term, cooperative program with shared data access, making high-quality atmospheric measurements that are directly comparable with the other stations in the network and following established aerosol sampling protocols (e.g., NOAA, GAW).