“For exceptional creativity in research and unselfish collaboration, advancing our understanding of stratospheric dynamics, stratospheric water vapor, and ozone”
Karen is well recognized as being among the world’s top leading experts in stratospheric dynamics, stratospheric water vapor, and ozone, and their relationships to climate change. A hallmark of her research is the way she conducts her research by incorporation of multiple data sources, including in situ observations from aircraft and balloon instruments as well as space-based observations from a wide variety of satellites, while exhibiting a remarkable level of creativity, inspiration, and unselfish collaboration.
Karen’s roles as lead scientist, flight planner, and forecaster in numerous aircraft field campaigns through the years has garnered her a reputation as a superb collaborator and leader who unselfishly works to incorporate the disparate objectives of multiple PIs into the flight plans, earning her wide respect from her peers. She has been a contributing author and expert reviewer for the IPCC, and both a contributing and lead author for the WMO Ozone Assessment Report. She developed three comprehensive and popular datasets for stratospheric water vapor and ozone, which she unselfishly shared with the scientific community.
Most befitting the Yoram Kaufman Award, as stated in her nominating letter, “Karen has gone far beyond her normal job responsibilities as a federal government scientist to make mentoring of young scientists a cornerstone of her professional approach. She has mentored over 20 young scientists, including an undergraduate student, a STEM teacher, and numerous graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. She has been an inspiration to many early-career women scientists by serving as a graduate or postdoctoral advisor.”
On behalf of the AGU Atmospheric Sciences section, I am pleased to present the 2016 Yoram Kaufman Award to Dr. Karen Rosenlof.
—William K. M. Lau, President, Atmospheric Sciences section, AGU