UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Michael E. Mann, distinguished professor of atmospheric sciences and director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State, has been selected to give the Stephen Schneider Lecture at the American Geophysical Society’s fall 2020 meeting, which will be held virtually in December.
The Stephen Schneider Lecture is presented annually and recognizes outstanding scientific accomplishments in global environmental change and in communicating scientific results to the public. The lecture honors the life and work of climatologist Stephen Schneider, an extremely influential scientist who received extensive recognition for his research, policy and outreach efforts related to climate change.
"Stephen Schneider was a role model and mentor to me, and I am truly humbled to be giving this lecture that honors his legacy," said Mann.
In 2017, Mann, a recognized expert on climate change, also received the Stephen H. Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communications, given to a natural or social scientist who has made extraordinary scientific contributions and communicated that knowledge to a broad public in a clear and compelling fashion, from Climate One at the Commonwealth Club.
Mann has received additional awards for science communication. In 2018, he received the Climate Communication Prize from the American Geophysical Union and the Award for Public Engagement with Science from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Mann is the author of more than 200 peer-reviewed publications and has written "Dire Predictions: Understanding Climate Change" and "The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars." He is also co-author with Tom Toles, Washington Post editorial cartoonist, of "The Madhouse Effect." He is co-founder of the science website RealClimate.org.
In April, Mann was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors given to a scientist or engineer in the United States, in recognition of distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. In 2019, he was named co-recipient of the 2019 Tyler Prize, the premier international award for environmental science.
Mann is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union.
Mann holds joint appointments in Penn State's Earth and Environmental Systems Institute and Department of Geosciences. He received his undergraduate degrees in physics and applied math from the University of California, Berkeley, and his master’s degree in physics and doctorate in geology and geophysics from Yale University.