Phone: 305.421.4046 | Office: Room 305, Marine Science Center
Professor, Department of Atmospheric Sciences
Director, NOAA Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS)
Professor Benjamin Kirtman received his BS in Applied Mathematics from the University of California-San Diego in 1987, and his MS and Ph.D. in 1992 from the University of Maryland–College Park. From 1993-2002, Dr. Kirtman was a research scientist with the Center for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies, and in 2002, joined the faculty of George Mason University as a tenured Associate Professor. In 2007, Dr. Kirtman moved to the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School for Marine and Atmospheric Science as a full professor of meteorology and physical oceanography, and currently serves as the Program Director for Climate and Environmental Hazards at the Center for Computational Science. Dr. Kirtman is also a 2017-18 recipient of the UM Provost’s Award for Scholarly Activity and was awarded the Department of Atmospheric Sciences undergraduate teaching award in 2016, 2017, and 2018. In 2018, Dr. Kirtman was elected as a Fellow in the American Meteorological Society.
In 2011, he was appointed Associate Dean of Research for the Rosenstiel School. In 2008, Professor Kirtman received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science at the University of Maryland. Dr. Kirtman was also awarded the Stony Brook University School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (SOMAS) Robert D. Cess Distinguished Lecture in Recognition of Outstanding Contributions to Atmospheric Sciences in 2018.
Internationally, Dr. Kirtman has enjoyed a leadership role in the World Climate Research Program (WCRP) seasonal-to-interannual prediction activities. In particular, he has chaired the international CLIVAR Working Group on Seasonal to Interannual Prediction (WGSIP), and the WCRP Task Force for Seasonal Prediction (TFSP). Dr. Kirtman was a coordinating lead author for the Intergovenmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) working group one—the Scientific Basis.
Professor Kirtman was an Executive Editor of Climate Dynamics, and is an Associate Editor of the American Geophysical Union Journal of Geophysical Research and has received numerous research grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy (DOE), NOAA, NASA, and the Office of Naval Research, and he leads the North American Multi-Model Ensemble Prediction (NMME) Experiment. Professor Kirtman is the author and/or co-author of over 130 peer reviewed papers focused on understanding and predicting climate variability on time scales from days to decades.