Academician Kuo-Nan Liou was recently awarded the 2010 William Nordberg Medal by the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) in recognition of his “outstanding contributions to the application of space science”. Academician Liou will receive the award during the inaugural ceremony of the 38th COSPAR Scientific Assembly on July 19, 2010. The assembly will be held from July 18 to July 25, 2010 in Bremen, Germany.

        COSPAR is a non-profit organization established by the International Council for Science (ICSU) in 1958 to promote international collaboration and information exchange in space research. It executes its missions through the organization and sponsorship of meetings and the publication of scientific papers and information.

        The COSPAR William Nordberg Medal commemorates the work of the late William Nordberg, a world-renowned space scientist and former Director of Applications at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. It is awarded once every two years to a scientist who has made a distinguished contribution to the application of space science in a field covered by COSPAR.

        Academician Kuo-Nan Liou is currently Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Sciences and Director of the Joint Institute for Regional Earth System Science and Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In addition to the COSPAR award, Academician Liou has received numerous awards and accolades during his forty years of research. Among them are an Award Certificate for contributions to the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and former US Vice President Al Gore in 2007, the Distinguished Achievement Award of the Chinese American Engineers and Scientists Association of Southern California (2004) and the Jule G. Charney Award of the American Meteorological Society (1998). He is Fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was elected an Academician of Academia Sinica in 2004.

        After receiving his Ph.D. from New York University in 1970, Academician Liou worked as a Research Associate at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies for two years. He then became a long-time faculty member at the University of Utah, assuming several different positions from 1975 to 1997 that included the Chairman of the Department of Meteorology between 1996 and 1997. He has also held a faculty position at the University of Washington. Academician Liou joined the UCLA in 1997. 

        Previous recipients of the William Nordberg Medal include Sir John T. Houghton, former Professor of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Oxford, and Dr. Charles Elachi, Director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. COSPAR awards an array of distinct prizes in several categories; besides the William Nordberg Medal it also gives the Space Science Award, the International Cooperation Medal, the Distinguished Service Medal and the Service Medal. Most of the awards are given once every other year.

Related Website:
http://cosparhq.cnes.fr/