International Pacific Research Center Officials Receive International Recognition

Honors bestowed by the American Meteorological Society and the Pacific Congress on Marine Science and Technology (PACON International)

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Contact:
Gisela Speidel, (808) 956-9252
Public Relations Specialist
Posted: Feb 10, 2003

Officials with the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa‘s International Pacific Research Center have recently been recognized by a variety of international organizations for their excellence in research and leadership.

Julian McCreary, professor and director of the International Pacific Research Center (IPRC), was among 34 international scientists selected as new Fellows by the American Meteorological Society (AMS). The AMS, one of the nation‘s leading professional societies for atmospheric and related sciences, bestows the prestigious lifelong title on only a small number of its approximately 11,000 members worldwide. He received the honor for his outstanding research contributions toward understanding the dynamics of the upper ocean and its influence on atmospheric circulation and climate.

McCreary received his PhD in 1977 from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. His dissertation research was one of the first ocean model studies of El NiƱo, demonstrating how the eastern Pacific Ocean responds to changing winds confined to the western region. He will be recognized at this week‘s 83rd Annual Meeting of the AMS in Long Beach, Calif.

Lorenz Magaard, professor of oceanography and IPRC‘s executive associate director, was recently named president-elect of the Pacific Congress on Marine Science and Technology (PACON International), a Honolulu-based, international, nonprofit scientific organization. He will begin a two-year term as president in 2004.

Magaard has been an active member of PACON from its inception and has received numerous awards and honors, including the prestigious International Award of the Pacific Congress on Marine Science and Technology for his significant contribution to the advancement of ocean science and technology. A Fellow of the Marine Technology Society, Magaard is well known in Hawaiʻi and within the marine science community.

PACON is a dynamic network of marine scientists, engineers and policy makers organized for the purpose of sharing insights and breakthroughs in ocean scientific research, and in state-of-the art marine technology. The members of this organization are active in promoting scientific, technical, and environmentally sound use of ocean resources in a developmentally sustainable way. Though it is based in Honolulu, the organization focuses on issues and research affecting the entire Asia-Pacific marine environment, and its membership and sponsors are worldwide.

Also elected to a leadership position was John Wiltshire, acting director of the Hawaiʻi Undersea Research Laboratory at UH Mānoa. Wiltshire was named executive director of PACON with a specific focus of widening participation in the organization, its meetings and congresses.

IPRC is a research center within the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at UH Mānoa devoted to studying the causes of climate variability in the Asia-Pacific region. It was founded in October 1997 under an agreement between the University of Hawaiʻi and Japanese governmental agencies — the Japan Marine Science and Technology Center and the National Space Development Agency of Japan. The center‘s financial support comes from Japan, U.S. federal granting agencies, and the state of Hawaiʻi. Under the directorship of McCreary, IPRC has become an excellent example of successful scientific collaboration between the United States, Japan, and the international climate research community.

For more information, visit: http://iprc.soest.hawaii.edu