Plenary Speakers
Grand Salon Opera level 4 - Tuesday May 29, 9:00-9:45 AM
David Grimes
President of WMO
David Grimes was elected President of the World Meteorological Organization by Sixteenth World Meteorological Congress in 2011 for a four-year term beginning immediately after the closure of the Congress. He is also Assistant Deputy Minister and head of Environment Canada's Meteorological Service since July 2006. He has been Canada's Permanent Representative with WMO since December 2006. He has 35 years of scientific, operations, research and management experience at Environment Canada. He has over 20 years experience working with WMO initiatives and programmes. His experience also includes a significant number of challenging positions and assignments over the years, ranging from weather forecast operations to science to policy. He occupied the position of Director General with the Meteorological Service of Canada for 15 years for a number of posts, including Canadian Climate Center, Policy, Services, Predictions and Partnerships. Mr. Grimes has extensive educational experience in the domains of science and management (MBA level). He holds a Bachelor of Science in physics, mathematics and meteorology and is a certified professional meteorologist. David Grimes was elected President of the World Meteorological Organization by Sixteenth World Meteorological Congress in 2011 for a four-year term beginning immediately after the closure of the Congress.
Grand Salon Opera level 4 - Thursday May 31, 9:15-10:00 AM
Prof. Christian Kummerow
Colorado State University
Professor Kummerow joined the CSU Department of Atmospheric Science Faculty in June 2000. Prior to joining the department, he worked at the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center serving as the Project Scientist for the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM). He is currently a member of the Joint TRMM Steering Team. Professor Kummerow is also a member of the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer (AMSR) team and plays an active role in planning and defining new spaceborne missions geared towards obtaining a better understanding of the Global Water and Energy Cycle.
Grand Salon Opera level 4 - Wednesday May 30, 9:15-10:00 AM
Dr. Jeffrey K. Lazo
National Center for Atmospheric Research
Jeffrey K. Lazo is Director of the Societal Impacts Program (SIP) at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. He is an economist with extensive experience in nonmarket valuation of environmental and natural resource commodities. His current work focuses on the communication and value of weather information and the economic impact of severe weather events. Jeff is a member of the AMS Commission on the Weather and Climate Enterprise Steering Committee, the World Meteorological Organization Forum on the Socio-Economic Applications of Meteorological and Hydrological Services and WMO’s WWRP Societal and Economic Research and Applications Working Group. He is former editor of the American Meteorological Society journal Weather, Society, and Climate. Jeff received a BA in economics and philosophy from the University of Denver and his Masters and PhD in environmental and natural resource economics from the University of Colorado-Boulder. Former positions include Assistant Professor of Mineral Economics at Penn State University and Manager at Stratus Consulting in Boulder, CO.
Grand Salon Opera level 4 - Tuesday May 29, 9:45-10:30 AM
Dr. Dave Burridge
Dr. Burridge held the position of Director of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) from 1991 to 2004. His innovative contributions to the field of numerical weather prediction were a major contribution to the establishment and maintenance of the ECMWF as a world-leading forecast centre. Since retirement from ECMWF in 2004, he has been enthusiastically, and effectively, shaping and steering the implementation of the THORPEX Program. Here his in-depth knowledge of the scientific questions at the forefront of NWP, his ability to assimilate new ideas and look at problems from a number of different angles and his outstanding people management skills have been instrumental in keeping this complex programme moving forward. Dr. Burridge was the president of the European Meteorological Society from 2005 to 2008. He was honoured by the government of the UK when he was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 1995 for services to meteorology.
Grand Salon Opera level 4 - Friday June 1, 9:15-10:00 AM
Dr. Marcel Babin
Chairholder CERC in Remote Sensing of Canada's New Arctic Frontier at Université Laval, Québec, Canada
Dr. Babin is an oceanographer with a strong expertise on light propagation and light-matter interactions in the ocean. His research activities cover the study of fundamental lightdriven processes in the ocean (e.g. photosynthesis, photo-oxidation), the optical characterization of various substances found in seawater, the description and understanding of the variations in ocean biomass production, the monitoring of light driven carbon fluxes and biomass production from space using ocean colour remote sensing, the development of the related remote sensing algorithms, and the modelling of light-driven processes in the ocean and ecosystem interactions. His research is achieved in the laboratory, in the field and using remote sensing technologies. Part of it is also based on theoretical calculations and modelling. While remote sensing and the related technical developments are central in my research program, his scientific objectives are motivated by fundamental questions on the impact of climate change on marine ecosystems.
Grand Salon Opera level 4 - Wednesday May 30, 8:30-9:15 AM
Dr. Gary M. Lackmann
Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, North Carolina State University
Dr. Lackmann’s traditional area of focus is synoptic-dynamic meteorology. In recent years, he has extended his work towards the weather-climate intersection, specifically the relation of weather extremes such as tropical cyclones and heavy rainfall, to climate change. Additionally, he and his group have studied the dynamics and impacts of tropical cyclones, organized convection, winter storms, and topographically forced flows. Dr. Lackmann earned BS and MS degrees in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Washington, and a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences at the State University of New York, University at Albany. Former positions include a postdoctoral appointment at McGill University, and a faculty post at the State University of New York, College at Brockport. He joined the faculty of North Carolina State University in 1999. He has recentlyed authored a textbook entitled Midlatitude Synoptic Meteorology: Dynamics, Analysis, and Forecasting. He has served as a subject-matter editor for the Bulletin of the AMS since 2006 in the areas of numerical analysis and mesoscale modeling.
Grand Salon Opera level 4 - Thursday May 31, 8:30-9:15 AM
Dick Dee
Dick Dee is in charge of reanalysis activities at the European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). He is responsible for the production of the on-going ERA‐Interim reanalysis, and is coordinating European preparations for a new state-of-the‐art global atmospheric reanalysis reaching back to the early 20th century. Dr. Dee obtained a degree in Applied Mathematics from New York University in 1983. Prior to joining ECMWF in 2005 he worked as a mathematics professor at PUC-Rio in Brazil, as a research scientist at Delft Hydraulics in the Netherlands, and as a physical scientist at NASA/GSFC in the United States. His primary area of expertise is data assimilation, with special interest in the treatment of biases in models and observations.
Grand Salon Opera level 4 -Friday June 1, 8:30-9:15 AM
Dr. Matthew Martin
Dr. Martin has worked on ocean data assimilation since starting at the Met Office in 2000. In 2008 he became manager of the team responsible for developing the Met Office's marine data assimilation systems. His current work is to lead the implementation and development of a variational ocean data assimilation scheme within the NEMO ocean modelling framework, called NEMOVAR. This scheme is developed in collaboration with ECMWF, CERFACS, INRIA and other groups. He is a member of the GODAE OceanView Science Team and is co-chair of its Inter-Comparison Task Team, leading international efforts to inter-compare the output of operational ocean forecasting systems. He is also a member of the GHRSST Science Team and chairs the GHRSST Inter-Comparison Technical Advisory Group which is responsible for the coordination of inter-comparison experiments and real-time inter-comparison systems maintained by SST analysis producers.
