Atmospheric Scientist Gary Lackmann Named Head of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Atmospheric scientist Gary Lackmann has been named head of NC State’s Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences, effective Aug. 16, 2024. Lackmann has been serving as interim head of the department since August 2023.
As head, Lackmann will oversee academic, administrative, and budgetary matters for one of the nation’s top integrated geosciences departments. The department has about 370 students, nearly 40 faculty, and receives research funding, which totaled about $6 million in 2022-23, from a variety of federal and state agencies as well as industry and non-governmental partners. Most of the department’s faculty and graduate students conduct research, as well as a third of its undergraduates.
Lackmann has been an atmospheric science faculty member at NC State since 1999 and has served in several leadership roles during that time, including as director of graduate programs. His research examines the dynamics and prediction of high-impact weather systems, including tropical and extratropical cyclones, convective storms and topographically forced flows. He also studies how climate change affects these high-impact weather systems, since warming and associated increases in water vapor alter the dynamics of storms and our environment. Major media outlets often ask Lackmann to comment on hurricanes and climate change, and his remarks have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN.
Lackmann’s awards and honors include the T. Theodore Fujita Research Achievement Award from the National Weather Association; the Edward N. Lorenz Teaching Excellence Award from the American Meteorological Society (AMS); and NC State’s Alumni Association Outstanding Teacher Award. In 2019, he was named a fellow of AMS. He has also mentored dozens of graduate students, including Michael Brennan, the director of the National Hurricane Center; and Neil Jacobs, the former acting administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Lackmann received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in atmospheric science from the University of Washington. He received his Ph.D. from the University at Albany, also in atmospheric science, and conducted postdoctoral research at McGill University in Canada.
This post was originally published in College of Sciences News.
