November 5th, 2010
Charles Stock, of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL), was honored with the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the U.S. government’s most prestigious award for early-career scientists. Award winners were announced in a White House press release on November 5, 2010.
The award recognizes Dr. Stock’s efforts to enhance our understanding of interactions between marine ecosystems and climate, including work to develop innovative ways of applying climate and earth system models to assess impacts of climate change on living marine resources at global and regional scales.
The Presidential Award is the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government to recognize and support the extraordinary achievements of young professionals at the outset of their independent research careers in science and technology.
Dr. Stock’s GFDL career began in 2007, as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Climate Science, GFDL’s collaborative institute with Princeton University. After completing the fellowship, he joined the Climate and Ecosystems Group at GFDL as a Research Oceanographer, where he is developing marine ecosystem models capable of capturing both the influence of marine ecosystems on global-scale biogeochemical cycles and the impacts of climate on marine food webs. His research includes analysis of the impact of climate on the energy flow between phytoplankton and larger organisms – such as fish – that provide the bulk of our harvested marine resources.
Emerging as a leader in interdisciplinary efforts between the climate modeling community and living marine resource scientists, Dr. Stock has organized an international effort to publish a comprehensive synthesis on the use of climate and earth system models to assess the impact of climate on living marine resources. He plans to use the PECASE award to build upon these efforts. “Receiving this award is a great honor, privilege, and most importantly, a tremendous opportunity to strengthen the cross-disciplinary collaborations vital for understanding climate and ecosystem dynamics,” according to Dr. Stock.
Dr. Stock holds a Ph.D. in Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering from the MIT/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Joint Program, a Masters in Environmental Fluid Mechanics and Hydrology from Stanford University, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Princeton University.
The Presidential awards were established by President Clinton in 1996 and are coordinated by the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House. Nine federal agencies, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), recommend recipients to the White House.