Ralph A. Kahn and Ross J. Salawitch received the 2009 Yoram J. Kaufman Award for Unselfish Cooperation in Research at the 2009 AGU Fall Meeting, held 14–18 December in San Francisco, Calif. The award is for “broad influence in atmospheric science through exceptional creativity, inspiration of younger scientists, mentoring, international collaborations, and unselfish cooperation in research.”
Response
I am grateful to the committee for this honor. It is an award for mentoring and for collaboration. Mentoring and collaboration are not things that one does alone. There are many students, colleagues, and former students who are now colleagues, who I have to thank for this. I am fortunate to know, and to have worked with, so many good-hearted and multitalented colleagues, of which Yoram Kaufman was certainly one.
On the subject of collaboration, I also want to mention the intensive field campaigns that have become a key part of my research program. They represent cultural as well as scientific events, bringing satellite and suborbital experimentalists together with each other, with modelers, and with some enlightened and forward thinking managers, for intense, collaborative efforts. For an important segment of the atmospheric research community, these campaigns have actually created the kind of multidisciplinary environment that was spoken about in the abstract for years, and that is essential for making real progress on the immensely challenging and critically important climate change issues we face. I look forward to many more years of good collaborating and mentoring.
Thank you again for this honor.
—Ralph A. Kahn, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland