Chris Slocum, a research scientist with NOAA NESDIS’ Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR), has been selected as the 2025 winner of NOAA’s David S. Johnson Award. He will receive the award on March 21, 2025, at the 68th Annual Dr. Robert H. Goddard Memorial Dinner in Washington, D.C.
"The David S. Johnson award honors the first Administrator of what became NOAA’s Satellite and Information Service,” said Stephen Volz, Ph.D., Assistant Administrator for NOAA NESDIS. “It recognizes exemplary work from young scientists like Chris Slocum who are using satellite data to help save lives, protect the economy, and benefit society overall."
Slocum is being recognized for developing new operational applications for Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) and Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) observations from NOAA’s GOES-R Series satellites that provide better guidance for tropical cyclone forecasting.
“NOAA NESDIS has had a rich history of using satellite observations for tropical cyclone monitoring, analysis, and forecasting. The technology on today's generation of GOES satellites provides better insight into changes in convective activity within tropical cyclones,” Slocum said. “Our goal was to couple these improved observing capabilities with innovations in artificial intelligence/machine learning for the most challenging aspects of tropical cyclones forecasting–their formation and rapid intensification.”
The new tropical cyclone product developed by Slocum is now available to forecasters at NOAA’s NWS National Hurricane Center, the Central Pacific Hurricane Center and Department of Defense Joint Typhoon Warning Center for the upcoming 2025 Hurricane Season. “The forecasters can run the guidance in-house and then use the output in their intensity forecasting and decision making process,” Slocum added.
Growing up in southeastern Pennsylvania, Chris Slocum attended Pennsylvania State University, where he earned his B.S. in meteorology, and continued his education at Colorado State University, where he earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in tropical cyclone fluid dynamics. He joined NOAA NESDIS/STAR as a Physical Scientist in 2019.