Distinguished researchers L. Ruby Leung, Natalie Mahowald, and Warren Washington have been elected to the American Geophysical Union (AGU) 2013 Class of Fellows. Of the 217 nominations, 62 were elected into the new class, which will be recognized on Wednesday, December 11, at the Honors Ceremony and Banquet during the 2013 AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco.

Leung, a laboratory fellow at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, was recognized for her “extraordinary leadership in the development and use of regional climate models to advance climate change and hydroclimate research.” Throughout her career, she has been actively involved in modeling in regional and global scales, developing subgrid cloud parameterizations, and coupling land and atmosphere models. Leung applies regional and global climate models and hydrology models to understand the impacts of climate variability and change on water resources in the United States and East Asia. Her research on climate change impacts has been featured in Science, Popular Science, the Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, and many major newspapers. She is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and American Meteorological Society (AMS).

Mahowald is an associate professor at Cornell University. Her research is focused on understanding feedbacks in the Earth system that impact climate change. This includes global and regional scale atmospheric transport of biogeochemically important species, such as desert dust, as well as the carbon cycle. Mahowald was acknowledged “for fundamental contributions to our understanding of mineral aerosol impacts on global biogeochemical cycles and the climate system.” She is an AMS Fellow and has received several awards and honors, including the Henry G. Houghton Award.

Washington, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, is an internationally recognized expert on atmospheric science and climate research. He was cited for his “fundamental contributions and leadership in the study of global climate and climate modeling, and for his inspiring mentorship of our young future scientists.” Washington specializes in computer modeling of Earth's climate. His current research involves using the Community Earth System Model (CESM) to study the impacts of climate change in the 21st century. Both models were used extensively in the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment, for which NCAR scientists, including Washington, and colleagues around the world shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Over the years, Washington has published almost 200 papers in professional journals, garnered dozens of national and international awards, and served as a science advisor to former presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton.

AGU honors individuals who have made exceptional scientific contributions and attained acknowledged eminence in the fields of Earth and space science. Congratulations!