Michael Ek

Mike Ek was named the Director of Joint Numerical Testbed in February of 2018. Before coming to NCAR, Mike was the Deputy Director of the Environmental Modeling Center (EMC) in the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), and lead the EMC land-hydrology modeling team.  EMC develops and improves numerical weather and earth system models through a broad program in partnership with the research community, which includes NCAR.  Prior to joining NCEP in 1999, he was in the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University where his research focused on land and atmospheric boundary-layer model development.  He has led and participated in various national and international activities in earth system study and numerical model development, e.g. he was previously the co-chair for the Global Land/Atmosphere System Study which is part of the Global Energy and Water Exchanges (GEWEX) project, where GEWEX is a core program under the World Meteorological Organization's World Climate Research Programme.  Mike has also been involved in a number of community research and educational outreach activities, from student competitions at conferences, chairing the American Meteorological Society committee on Hydrology, serving on Ph.D. committees and lecturing at summer schools on weather and climate, to major research initiatives, program panel reviews and national and international conferences.  He received his Ph.D. from Wageningen University in The Netherlands in 2005, with his dissertation topic on land-atmosphere interaction and the role of land-atmosphere coupling in the evolution of surface fluxes and boundary-layer development.