Rate My Professor Christopher Holloway

Professor Christopher Holloway is Professor in Convection in the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading, a role he assumed in 2023 following his promotion from Associate Professor in Convection, which he held from 2018 to 2023. Earlier positions at the same institution include Lecturer in Convection from 2015 to 2018, NERC Postdoctoral Research Fellow in NCAS-Climate from 2012 to 2015, and Postdoctoral Researcher from 2008 to 2012. His academic journey began with a PhD in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2008, where his dissertation focused on characterizing vertical structure in the tropical atmosphere using observations and theoretical considerations. He also earned an MSc in Atmospheric Sciences from UCLA in 2004 and an AB magna cum laude in Earth and Planetary Sciences from Harvard University in 2001.

Holloway's research centers on atmospheric convection and its organization, tropical weather and climate, and the interactions between convection and the large-scale environment. Key interests include convective self-aggregation and its implications for phenomena such as the Madden-Julian Oscillation and tropical cyclones, as well as improving representations of convection and turbulence in global weather and climate models. He leads as Principal Investigator on the UPFLO project, a five-year AFESP initiative to advance the simulation of convective updrafts and anvil clouds in km-scale models. Holloway is also Co-Investigator on several major projects, including FORWARDS under WCSSP Southeast Asia for high-resolution forecasts of high-impact weather, CIRCULATES within the NERC CloudSense programme on cloud feedbacks and climate sensitivity, CLOUDY TIME and Morph linked to the WesCon field campaign for turbulence and convection modelling. His contributions extend to earlier work on the Cascade project using high-resolution UK Met Office Unified Model simulations. Notable honors include the AMS Editor’s Award in 2020 for insightful reviews on tropical convection, NERC Postdoctoral Fellowship from 2012 to 2015, Bjerknes Memorial Award and Bosart Award from UCLA in 2007, and NASA Earth System Science Graduate Student Fellowship from 2006 to 2008. He serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences. Key publications encompass "Environmental control of tropical cyclone intensity" (Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 2004), "Tropical drying trends in global warming models and observations" (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2006), "Moisture vertical structure, column water vapor, and tropical deep convection" (Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 2009), "Observing Convective Aggregation" (Surveys in Geophysics, 2017), and "Climate models underestimate dynamic cloud feedbacks in the tropics" (Geophysical Research Letters, 2023).