The US Senate has confirmed Dr Michael C Morgan’s appointment as assistant secretary of commerce for environmental observation and prediction and deputy NOAA administrator.
Morgan will be responsible for providing agency-wide direction regarding weather, water, climate and ocean observations, including in-situ instruments and satellites, and the process of converting observations to predictions for environmental threats.
Gina M Raimondo, the US Secretary of Commerce, said, “Dr Morgan will be an invaluable addition to the department and to our NOAA leadership team. His decades of world-renowned atmospheric and oceanic scientific expertise and dedicated service to the community make him ideally qualified to help guide NOAA’s lifesaving observation and prediction activities.”
Morgan most recently served as a professor and associate department chair in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where his research was focused on the analysis, diagnosis, prediction and predictability of mid-latitude and tropical weather systems.
Dr Rick Spinrad, NOAA administrator, said, “I am excited to welcome Dr Morgan to NOAA, and look forward to working with him to advance NOAA’s mission. His expertise will be especially critical as climate change necessitates an even greater reliance on NOAA’s world-class observations and predictions to support sustainable economic growth, protect property and save lives.”
Commenting on his appointment, Morgan said, “I look forward to working with the exceptional team at NOAA to advance our nation’s Earth system prediction capabilities, ensure that our workforce reflects the diversity of our country and the communities we serve, and develop tools so that our authoritative weather and climate data can be used even more effectively. We know that communities across the country rely on NOAA data products as they develop and execute plans to improve preparedness for extreme weather and environmental change.”
In addition to his roles at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Morgan recently served on the World Meteorological Organization World Weather Research Programme’s Scientific Steering Committee and as a member of the board of directors of the American Institute of Physics and chair of its Public Policy Advisory Committee. He also recently completed two terms on the board of trustees of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). Morgan has previously served as the division director for the Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences at the National Science Foundation, and as an AMS/UCAR Congressional Science Fellow, working in the office of US Senator Benjamin Cardin (Maryland) as a senior legislative fellow on energy and environmental issues.
Morgan is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society (AMS), an organization with which he has been involved for decades. Specifically, he has served the AMS community as a councilor and a member of several committees including the Committee on Ethics, Nominating Committee, Planning Commission, Board on Women and Minorities and as a member the Scientific and Technological Activities Commission for Atmospheric and Oceanic Fluid Dynamics.