Marshall Shepherd, the Georgia Athletic Association Distinguished Professor of geography at the University of Georgia, has been selected to receive the 2018 Helmut E. Landsberg Award from the American Meteorological Society. The award honors Dr. Shepherd’s work in rainfall climatology and its effects on urban areas. He will receive the honor at the society’s annual awards banquet on January 10.
“To be recognized by peers with one of the more significant awards in my field is particularly humbling and affirms that our body of work on how urbanization impacts weather and climate is having an impact,” Professor Shepherd said.
Jere W. Morehead, president of the University of Georgia, added that “this award speaks to Dr. Shepherd’s level of influence in his field and the value of his research to the world.”
Professor Shepherd is the director of the atmospheric sciences program in the geography department of the University of Georgia’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. Before joining the faculty at the University of Georgia, he was a research meteorologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Dr. Shepherd holds bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in meteorology, all from Florida State University. He is the past president of the American Meteorological Society.