Congratulations to our new AMOS Fellows for 2026! Prof Nerilie Abram Professor Nerilie Abram is an…
AMOS Awards 2025
| AMOS is delighted to announce the award recipients for 2025 as detailed below. We would also like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank the Awards Committees for the great work they do in running our Awards Program. |
Zillman Medal 2025 awarded to Professor Trevor McDougall The Zillman Medal acknowledges senior scientists who have carried out most of their research in Australia and have made a significant contribution with a record of innovative and transformative research. The award is named in honour of the distinguished contributions of Dr John Zillman to Australian and international meteorology and science. Dr Zillman was the Director of Meteorology from 1978 to 2003 and President of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) from 1995 to 2003 and is now an honorary senior adviser at The Bureau of Meteorology. Professor Trevor McDougall Trevor McDougall is Emeritus Scientia Professor of Ocean Physics at the University of New South Wales and the world’s foremost authority on ocean thermodynamics. His discoveries have fundamentally changed how oceanographers measure and model the ocean’s role in climate. Trevor’s theoretical breakthroughs include the concepts of thermobaricity and neutral density surfaces, which corrected century-old assumptions about ocean mixing. His development of Conservative Temperature and Absolute Salinity—adopted internationally as TEOS-10—allows the heat content of the ocean to be defined more accurately by a factor of a hundred. His work with Gent, Willebrand and McWilliams on mesoscale eddy parameterisation has been called the largest single improvement in ocean modelling since 1985. Beyond theory, Trevor has made his advances practically accessible through widely used software toolboxes, ensuring global adoption of rigorous thermodynamic standards. An inaugural AMOS Fellow (2004), Trevor served as President of IAPSO (2019–2023) and chaired the Australian Academy of Science’s Climate Science Capability Review. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of London (2012), and other honours include Companion of the Order of Australia (2018), the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science (2022), NSW Scientist of the Year (2023), and the EGU’s Alfred Wegener Medal (2025). Trevor’s work underpins the accuracy of climate projections essential to Australia’s future. ___________________ Priestley Medal 2025 awarded to Associate Professor Jan Zika The Priestley Medal recognises personal excellence in meteorological, oceanographic or climate research carried out substantially within Australia by a mid-career scientist no older than 45 years. It commemorates the life-long contributions of Dr C H B Priestley, the first Chief of the CSIRO Division of Meteorological Physics, to meteorological and oceanographic research. Associate Professor Jan Zika Jan Zika is Associate Professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at UNSW Sydney, where he leads the Climate Data Dynamics Research Group and serves as Deputy Node Leader of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Antarctic Science.Jan has transformed how scientists quantify ocean and atmospheric processes by pioneering the use of thermodynamic coordinates to analyse climate data. His framework—described by NYU’s Olivier Pauluis as a “blueprint for systematic analysis of thermodynamic transformations in the climate system”—reframes questions from “How warm is the water?” to “How much warm water is there?”, enabling novel insights into ocean circulation, heat uptake, and the global water cycle.His research has yielded high-impact findings: determining that the water cycle amplifies at approximately 3% per degree of warming (published in Nature), and demonstrating through work in Science that the atmosphere is unlikely to become windier under global warming. He bridges data science and climate dynamics through techniques including optimal transport theory and machine learning.Jan received the 2018 EGU Ocean Sciences Outstanding Early Career Scientist Award and the 2020 Anton Hales Medal from the Australian Academy of Science. He serves as a Climate Council spokesperson and represents Australian oceanography on the Academy’s Committee for Earth System Science. ___________________ Uwe Radok Award 2024 awarded to Dr Xihan Zhang The Uwe Radok Award is for the best PhD thesis in the AMOS fields of oceanography, glaciology or climatology, awarded in Australia. It honours the contributions of Dr Uwe Radok who was one of Australia’s pioneers in meteorological and glaciological research. He was Head of the Department of Meteorology at the University of Melbourne from 1960 to 1977, and he played a leading role in the development of Australian Antarctic meteorology and glaciology. Dr Xihan Zhang Xihan Zhang completed her PhD at the University of Tasmania in 2024, supervised by Maxim Nikurashin, Beatriz Peña-Molino, Steve Rintoul, and Edward Doddridge. Her thesis, “Equilibration and Wind Sensitivity of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current by Barotropic and Baroclinic Dynamics,” addresses fundamental questions that have challenged physical oceanographers for decades.Xihan’s research explains how the Antarctic Circumpolar Current—the world’s largest ocean current—achieves its dynamical balance and responds to changes in forcing. Through an elegant synthesis of theoretical advances, idealised models, and realistic simulations, she demonstrated that the balance between wind forcing at the surface and topographic drag at the seafloor is established by rapid dynamical adjustment involving changes in sea surface height and vertically uniform flow. Crucially, her work shows this balance is independent of interior eddy processes, challenging long-held assumptions about Southern Ocean dynamics.Her findings are already influencing understanding of Southern Ocean sensitivity to climate change. As one examiner noted, these results “push forward our understanding of fundamental ocean physical dynamics” and “cast the sensitivity of the Southern Ocean in a new light.”Xihan has published her work in the Journal of Physical Oceanography, including papers on standing meanders of the ACC and maintenance of zonal momentum balance through barotropic dynamics. Her thesis reflects exceptional originality, analytical rigour, and clarity. ___________________ AMOS Science Outreach Award 2025 awarded to Dr Kial Stewart OAM The AMOS Science Outreach Award recognises AMOS outreach ambassadors, who inspire other AMOS members to undertake science engagement activities, and additionally recognizes those who engage with the public, politicians, schools, businesses and communities, to educate and inform those groups on topics associated with AMOS themes. Dr Kial Stewart OAM Kial Stewart is a Lecturer and Laboratory Manager at the Climate and Fluid Physics Laboratory in the Research School of Earth Sciences at the Australian National University. He operates one of the few purpose-built experimental facilities in Australia designed to examine fluid dynamics related to Earth’s climate system.Kial has developed innovative approaches to make complex atmospheric and oceanic physics accessible to diverse audiences. His “Fluids in 4K” YouTube channel, launched in 2019 with support from an ANU Vice-Chancellor’s Teaching Enhancement Grant, features 44 high-quality videos of laboratory experiments demonstrating phenomena such as gravity currents, planetary waves, and convection. The channel has accumulated over 66,000 views, with individual videos reaching audiences of 30,000—remarkable engagement for specialist physics content.Since 2022, Kial has pioneered live remote workshops broadcasting experiments in real-time to audiences worldwide, from atmospheric dynamics graduate students at the University of Tokyo to high school students studying via the NSW School of the Air in remote Australia. He hosts over 300 students annually through laboratory tours for programs including the National Youth Science Forum and Physics Olympiad.Kial is currently developing an open educational repository of climate science visualisations for teachers, lecturers and science communicators. His work demonstrates that effective outreach extends well beyond traditional media engagement. ___________________ Christopher Taylor Award 2025 awarded to Dr Robert Greenwood The Christopher Taylor Award recognises professional meteorologists for their initiative in contributing to operational forecasting and supporting activities in Australia. Christopher Taylor was a Bureau of Meteorology analyst and forecaster from the mid-1970s until his untimely death at age 35 in 1988. He had a natural curiosity in, and an enthusiasm and energy for investigating observed weather phenomena and operational forecasting problems, which was largely carried out in his own time. Dr Robert Greenwood Robert Greenwood is the Tsunami Technical Lead at the Bureau of Meteorology, where he oversees the systems supporting the Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre (JATWC). Since joining the Bureau in 2011, he has played progressively significant roles in shaping Australia’s operational tsunami services for both domestic and Indian Ocean regions.Robert led the implementation of the Tsunami Observation and Simulation Terminal (TOAST), a decision‑support tool that has substantially enhanced the Bureau’s capacity to assess and communicate tsunami threats. TOAST integrates complex assessment techniques into a streamlined interface, enabling forecasters to issue critical warnings within strict time-performance targets. His solution‑focused approach, combined with strong engagement with project partners, contractors and end users, was central to the tool’s successful operational rollout.A key innovation in Robert’s work has been the expansion of the Bureau’s tsunami service to include non‑earthquake sources—a capability that proved essential during Australia’s response to the 2022 Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai volcanic eruption, enabling timely and effective warnings for a previously unaddressed hazard type.Through Robert’s dedication, Australia’s tsunami warning service achieved its first international accreditation in 2020, with an independent audit confirming ISO 9001 compliance for quality management. He has also led staff training, coordinated tsunami exercises, and refined standard operating procedures—strengthening the resilience, reliability, and responsiveness of the national warning system. Kind regards Alex Sen Gupta on behalf of the AMOS Awards Committee |
