The National Academy of Sciences was chartered by Congress during the Civil War to provide the nation with evidence-based advice for sound public policy. The Academy has been responding recently to a number of “extreme events” in order to fulfill its mission. The first is that the time scale for decision makers has rapidly contracted while the problems have become very much more complex. The Academy must become more nimble to provide advice with faster turnaround while breaking down disciplinary barriers. The second problem is that the current administration has been historically slow to nominate its political appointees, particularly those in science roles. The good news is that the Director of OSTP has been nominated and is a meteorologist, of clear interest to the AMS. Finally, the #MeToo movement has caused a watershed moment for confronting sexual harassment. Fortunately, the National Academies began a study of sexual harassment in academic science, engineering, and medicine about 2 years ago, and the report was released this summer. The NAS is now acting on the recommendations by convening scientific leadership to change the culture in higher education and professional societies while also initiating changes within the Academy.

 

 

Marcia McNutt (B.A. in physics, Colorado College; Ph.D. in Earth sciences, Scripps Institution of Oceanography) is a geophysicist and the 22nd president of the National Academy of Sciences.

From 2013 to 2016, she was editor-in-chief of Science journals. McNutt was director of the U.S. Geological Survey from 2009 to 2013, during which time USGS responded to a number of major disasters, including the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. For her work to help contain that spill, McNutt was awarded the U.S. Coast Guard’s Meritorious Service Medal.

She is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), Geological Society of America, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the International Association of Geodesy. McNutt is a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society, UK, and the Russian Academy of Sciences.

In 1998, McNutt was awarded the AGU’s Macelwane Medal for research accomplishments by a young scientist, and she received the Maurice Ewing Medal in 2007 for her contributions to deep-sea exploration.

James Frederick “Jim” Bridenstine was nominated by President Donald Trump, confirmed by the U.S. Senate, and sworn in as NASA’s 13th administrator on April 23, 2018.

Bridenstine was elected in 2012 to represent Oklahoma’s First Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served on the Armed Services Committee and the Science, Space and Technology Committee.

Bridenstine’s career in federal service began in the U.S. Navy, flying the E-2C Hawkeye off the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier. It was there that he flew combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan and accrued most of his 1,900 flight hours and 333 carrier-arrested landings. He later moved to the F-18 Hornet and flew at the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Center, the parent command to TOPGUN.

After transitioning from active duty to the U.S. Navy Reserve, Bridenstine returned to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to be the Executive Director of the Tulsa Air and Space Museum & Planetarium.

Bridenstine was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander in 2012 while flying missions in Central and South America in support of America’s war on drugs. Most recently, he transitioned to the 137th Special Operations Wing of the Oklahoma Air National Guard.

Bridenstine completed a triple major at Rice University, and earned his MBA at Cornell University. He has three children with his wife, Michelle.

Credits: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Meteorological societies come in many shapes and sizes. So, for example, some are mainly professional bodies or learned societies that cater for the needs of professionals engaged in meteorology, whereas others embrace the weather enthusiasts who have no professional involvement. Also meteorological societies are engaged in a wide variety of activities such as holding meetings, providing educational activities and resources, publishing journals and/or newsletters, and accrediting meteorologists. But that raises the interesting question about what it is that meteorological societies do that cannot be done by others – what is their "unique selling point". Experience of the Member Societies of the European Meteorological Society will be used to try to address that question.

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Bob Riddaway retired from the Met Office in the UK in 2005, though he the continued working part-time at ECMWF for another ten years. After gaining a BSc in Physics and PhD in Meteorology from Edinburgh University he joined the Met Office to do research. He soon found that training and operational meteorology and were more to his liking, so his career included being Head of Training, Joint Head of Forecasting and Head of Development Resourcing & Technology. Whilst at the Met Office he became involved in the education and training activities of WMO, and this still continues.

For nearly fifty years Bob Riddaway has been involved in the activities of the Royal Meteorological Society. These included running various educational activities, helping to establish professional meteorological qualifications and being the founding editor of Meteorological Applications. For eight years he was the General Secretary and is currently a member of the Accreditation Board. He became a member of the EMS Council in 2003 and was Vice President between 2008 and 2015. In 2017 he was elected as EMS President.