Effective July 8th, William “Bill” Lapenta, Ph.D., will be the Acting Director of NOAA’s Office of Weather and Air Quality (OWAQ), a dynamic program within NOAA’s Oceanic and Atmospheric Research that supports NOAA’s world-class weather and air quality research, accelerating its transition to NOAA’s National Weather Service to benefit the American public.
Bill comes to NOAA Research from the National Weather Service (NWS), where he has been the Director of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) delivering national and global weather, water, climate and space weather guidance, forecasts, warnings and analyses to help save lives and protect property. As Director, Dr. Lapenta oversees the planning, science and technology, and operational responsibilities of NCEP’s nine national centers, which include the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Storm Prediction Center in Norman, OK., Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, CO., and the Weather Prediction Center in College Park, MD.
Lapenta has a Ph.D. in meteorology from the Pennsylvania State University (1990) and a Bachelor of Science degree in meteorology with a minor in mathematics from the State University of New York at Oneonta (1983). A native of Nyack, N.Y., Lapenta is currently a resident of Northern Virginia. He and his wife, Cathy (also a meteorologist), have two adult children.
