Venkatachalam Ramaswamy
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Early life and education
Born in India, Venkatachalam Ramaswamy went to school in a Methodist mission high school, where he received a strong science education. He went on to earn his bachelor's degree (1975) and his master's degree (1977) in Physics, from Delhi University. Although his program focused on theoretical physics, he became interested in practical applications. For the final year of his Master's program, he did independent research, writing a dissertation on the effects of nonspherical raindrops on microwave transmission signals and telecommunications.
In 1977, Ramaswamy came to the U.S. In 1982, he received his Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science from the State University of New York at Albany (SUNY-Albany), where he worked with Petr Chylek From 1983-1985, Ramaswamy held a postdoctoral position at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
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Career
In 1987, Ramaswamy accepted a position at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL). He became a Physical Scientist and group leader in 1995. He was promoted to Senior Scientist and group leader in 2000. After the retirement of Ants Leetmaa in January 2006, Ramaswamy became Acting Lab Director, then Director in November 2008. Since 1995, Ramaswamy has also taught atmospheric physics at Princeton University.
Ramaswamy has been instrumental in the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change: Since 1992 he has been a Lead Author or Coordinating Lead Author for each of the IPCC's assessment reports. He has also served on the Joint Scientific Committee of the World Climate Research Program."
"Climate change research is very important because one needs to understand how and why it has changed and is changing, how rapidly, by which mechanisms, and determine the impacts on key climate variables... What has been most special in the last 50 years is the expansion of knowledge on climate processes, variations and change – on the short and long timescales, and including the emergence of the knowledge of human influence on climate."