Dr Lisa Alexander

Centre of Excellence researcher wins the Priestley Medal

10 February 2012

Dr Lisa Alexander has just been named as the 2011 recipient of the Priestley Medal awarded by the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (AMOS). The Priestley Medal is awarded to younger scientists, preferably under the age of 40, for personal excellence in meteorological, oceanographic or climate research carried out substantially within Australia.

Dr Alexander won the award for her continuing research into climate extremes in Australia and internationally.

She has developed a significant international reputation and through research has provided convincing evidence that future changes in the frequency and intensity of the heatwaves in Australia will be strongly dependent on the amount of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.

Dr Alexander is one of the most highly cited atmospheric scientists in the past decade (2649 citations since her first publication in 2001).

A key achievement was to fundamentally revise the analysis of temperature and precipitation extremes through the development of the first gridded data sets on a new global scale. These results contributed significantly to the key conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group I Fourth Assessment Report.

The research also provided the first good evidence that natural climate variability could not account the changes that have been observed in extremes across Australia.

The Centre of Excellence congratulates Dr Alexander for the recognition by AMOS and the awarding of the Priestley Medal for her outstanding research.

Links:

The Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society

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