Sir Brian Hoskins awarded medal by Dutch academy of science
Release Date 23 April 2014
The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences will present the 2014 Buys Ballot Medal to meteorologist Sir Brian Hoskins on 23 June 2014. A mathematician by training, Sir Brian is receiving the medal for his pioneering work on weather systems and large-scale atmospheric motion.
Sir Brian J. Hoskins (born in 1945) has introduced numerous concepts and methods in operational meteorology that are now used worldwide to calculate weather forecasts. Thanks to his efforts, the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading has achieved a leading international position.
Sir Brian has already received many awards for his work and is regarded as one of the world's foremost meteorologists. He was knighted in 2007 for his services to the environment.
Sir Brian Hoskins received his PhD from the University of Cambridge in 1970. He has been with the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading since 1976, first as a Reader in Atmospheric Modelling and since 1981 as Professor of Meteorology. From 2000 to 2010, he was a Royal Society Research Professor. In addition to his professorship at the University of Reading, in 2008 he became the first Director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London.
About the Buys Ballot Medal
The Buys Ballot Medal is the oldest meteorological distinction in the world. It was established in 1888 in honour of Dutch meteorologist C.H.D. Buys Ballot (1817-1890), a member of the Academy who founded the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI). The Academy awarded the medal for the first time in 1893. Since then, it has been presented every ten years to a researcher who has made an outstanding contribution to the advancement of meteorology. Sir Brian Hoskins is the thirteenth recipient, and only the second ever from the UK.
The Buys Ballot Medal will be presented on Monday 23 June at the Academy's Trippenhuis Building, Kloveniersburgwal 29, Amsterdam. To mark this occasion, the Academy and the KNMI have organised a symposium on the same day devoted to Sir Brian Hoskins' work.