Dr. Steven Pawson

Program Review Panelist

Dr. Steven Pawson is Chief of the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.  In this capacity, he is responsible for guiding the development and use of the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) Earth System modeling and data assimilation system.  Dr. Pawson leads GMAO’s work to enhance the use of NASA’s satellite observations in weather and climate analysis and to improve predictions of the physical, chemical and biological components of the Earth system on timescales ranging from days to decades.

Dr. Pawson’s scientific expertise is in the domain of atmospheric composition, including the representation of transport processes in models and data assimilation systems.  He is author or co-author of more than 150 peer-reviewed publications, with early career work focused on the stratosphere, including the ozone layer.  Over the years, Dr. Pawson’s interests have expanded to include air pollution and the carbon cycle.  He was the founding co-lead of the GEOS Chemistry-Climate Model (CCM) project, and spearheaded early work on representing the carbon cycle in GEOS systems. More recently, Dr. Pawson has overseen the introduction of the GEOS-CF (Composition Forecasting) system into the suite of GEOS products.

Dr. Pawson has worked at NASA GSFC since 1997.  Prior to this, he spent 10 years at the Meteorological Institute of the Free University of Berlin in Germany.  From 2001-2005, he served as an editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres.  He was also co-lead author of Chapter 2 in the Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion: 2014. Dr. Pawson holds a B.Sc. in mathematics from the University of York, M.Sc. in atmospheric physics and dynamics from Imperial College, University of London, and Ph.D. in meteorology from University of Edinburgh.