Lars Peter Riishojgaard, an AMS Member, is the Director of the NASA/NOAA/DoD Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation in College Park, Maryland. His primary interests are observing systems and data assimilation. Dr. Riishojgaard has MSc (1989) and PhD (1992) degrees in geophysics from the University of Copenhagen. Until 1995 he was with the Danish Meteorological Institute in Copenhagen, after which he went to the Goddard Space Flight Center to work on ozone and stratospheric dynamics. He took a position with EUMETSAT in Germany in 1999, and returned to Goddard in 2000 to lead the analysis development in the Data Assimilation Office. He was appointed JCSDA Director in 2007. Dr. Riishojgaard chairs the Open Area Program Group for Integrated Observing Systems under the WMO Commission for Basic Systems. He is Co-Chair of the US Working Group on Space-based Wind Lidars and is a member of several other national and international committees on data assimilation and space-based remote sensing matters.