Graeme Leslie Stephens One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: is director of the center for climate sciences at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology and professor of earth observation the University of Reading.

Education

Stephens was educated at the University of Melbourne in Australia where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics 1973 in followed by a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

in meteorology in 1977.

Career and research

Stephens research has provided leadership in three major disciplinary areas of

Earth science Earth science or geoscience includes all fields of natural science related to the planet Earth. This is a branch of science dealing with the physical, chemical, and biological complex constitutions and synergistic linkages of Earth's four spheres ...

s: #

Atmospheric radiation An atmosphere () is a layer of gas or layers of gases that envelop a planet, and is held in place by the gravity of the planetary body. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A s ...

and radiative transfer # Earth observations and remote sensing # Understanding critical cloud-climate feedbacks and related effects on the Earth's energy budget Stephens has pioneered quantitative uses of global Earth observations and combined this with theory to study Earth's climate change feedback. He provided leadership in designing and developing international satellite programs exemplified by his creation and leadership of the decade long CloudSat satellite mission that is providing novel insights and understanding of the Earth's clouds, precipitation and their role in climate.

Awards and honours

Stephens was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering of the United States in 2015, received the

Jule G. Charney Award The Jule G. Charney Award is the American Meteorological Society's award granted to "individuals in recognition of highly significant research or development achievement in the atmospheric or hydrologic sciences". The prize was originally known as ...

of the American Meteorological Society for pioneering advances in understanding and measuring radiation processes and their role in climate, and received the Gold Medal of the International Radiation Commission in recognition of world leading contributions to the radiation community. He also received National Aeronautics Space Administration, Exceptional Public Service Medal. In 2025 he received the

Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal The Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal is the highest award for atmospheric science of the American Meteorological Society. It is presented to individual scientists, who receive a medal. Named in honor of meteorology and oceanography pioneer Carl- ...

of the American Meteorological Society.Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal 2025
/ref> He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2018.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stephens, Graeme Living people Australian climatologists Australian meteorologists Fellows of the Royal Society Year of birth missing (living people) University of Melbourne alumni