Rate My Professor Jagadish Shukla

Jagadish Shukla is a Distinguished University Professor Emeritus in geoscience at George Mason University, where he founded the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Earth Sciences as its inaugural chair and established the nation's first Climate Dynamics Ph.D. program, which has graduated over 60 students. Born in 1944 in rural India, he obtained his B.Sc. (Honors) in Physics, Mathematics, and Geology in 1962, M.Sc. in Geophysics in 1964, and Ph.D. in Geophysics in 1971 from Banaras Hindu University. He earned his Sc.D. in Meteorology in 1976 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under Jule Charney. Shukla's distinguished career includes serving as Junior Scientific Officer at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (1965-1971), Research Associate at Princeton University (1976-1977), Visiting Associate Professor at MIT (1978-1979), Senior Scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (1979-1983), Professor of Meteorology at the University of Maryland (1984-1993), Director of the Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies (1984-2004), President of the Institute of Global Environment and Society (1991-present), Professor of Earth Sciences and Global Change at George Mason University (1994-present), and Chairman of Climate Dynamics (2003-present).

Shukla's research centers on the predictability of weather and climate variations, with emphasis on monsoon circulation and rainfall variability, land-atmosphere interactions, deforestation impacts, and climate-poverty-sustainability linkages. He pioneered the scientific foundation for dynamical seasonal-to-interannual climate prediction, enabling operational forecasts that mitigate disasters and support agriculture globally. Seminal publications include Shukla and Mintz, 'Influence of land surface evapotranspiration on the earth's climate' (Science, 1982); Shukla et al., 'Amazonia deforestation and climate change' (Science, 1990); Shukla, 'Predictability in the Midst of Chaos: A scientific basis for climate forecasting' (Science, 1998); and Shukla et al., 'Dynamical Seasonal Prediction' (Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 2000). Author of over 250 peer-reviewed papers cited more than 35,000 times, he has advised 20 Ph.D. students. Honors include the Padma Shri (India, 2012), International Meteorological Organization Prize (2007), Carl-Gustav Rossby Research Medal (American Meteorological Society, 2005), Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal (NASA, 1982), Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (2008), Honorary Member of the American Meteorological Society (2016), and shared Nobel Peace Prize (2007) as lead author of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. Shukla chaired international programs such as MONEX, TOGA, GEWEX, and CLIVAR, served on advisory panels for governments in India and Virginia, and delivered approximately 300 invited lectures.