International Leader in Atmospheric Science Awarded Colorado State University’s Top Annual Research Honor

David Randall, Colorado State University professor of atmospheric science and an internationally renowned expert in cloud-climate studies and climate dynamics, today was named the recipient of the 2005 Scholarship Impact Award, the university’s top annual honor for research accomplishments.

The award, given by Colorado State’s Office of the Vice President for Research and Information Technology, recognizes a leading faculty member whose work has had major national and international impact. The honor, which includes $10,000 to support Randall’s research, was announced at the annual Celebrate Colorado State! luncheon.

"Dr. Randall’s vital research continues to have significant impact at Colorado State and throughout the world," said Hank Gardner, interim vice president for research and technology. "His pioneering contributions in climate studies have earned him international recognition. He has developed one of the world’s foremost university programs in climate modeling and poised Colorado State to be a leader in the important area of climate research. We are fortunate to have a scholar of his caliber on the Colorado State faculty."

Randall, who joined Colorado State in 1988 after spending nearly a decade working at the NASA/Goddard Flight Space Center, is known internationally for his contributions to the understanding of global atmospheric circulation and the use of computers to model the Earth’s climate. He has worked on identifying important feedback processes and simulating climate with general circulation models.

Over the past nine years, Randall’s research expenditures have been between $1.3 million and $1.9 million each year. His work is strongly supported by federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation, NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association and the U.S. Department of Energy. Randall is the principal investigator on a proposal to create an NSF Science and Technology Center at Colorado State in the area of multiscale modeling of atmospheric processes. The project, which is awaiting a funding decision, would establish Colorado State as the leading American university in the study of the climate.

Randall is author or co-author of about 150 peer-reviewed journal articles. His work is cited an average of 400 times a year, a high number for the relatively small field of atmospheric science. He also has made a strong impact on atmospheric science studies as a graduate student adviser. He has supervised 13 master’s theses and 15 doctoral dissertations, including that of Scott Denning in 1994. Denning is now a prominent faculty member at Colorado State, designated as one of the first Monfort Professors.

Randall earned a bachelor’s and master’s in 1971 from The Ohio State University and a doctorate in atmospheric science from the University of California-Los Angeles in 1976. He previously taught in the meteorology department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before joining NASA as a meteorologist in the global modeling and simulation branch at NASA/Goddard.

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