We’ve seen and experienced multiple weather disasters over this past year. As I write this, the number of fatalities from the Texas flash flooding is still being counted. Hurricane Helene and the Los Angeles-area fires caused unimaginable destruction. And, a myriad of other high-impact and extreme events regularly pose risk to people’s lives and livelihoods. AMS’s mission is to “advance the atmospheric and related sciences, technologies, applications, and services for the benefit of society.” Our community has made incredible strides toward this mission over the past 100+ years. Predictability limitations and critical prediction challenges remain and must continue to be prioritized. Yet, a major challenge we face is how to better realize the “for the benefit of society” part of our mission. I believe doing this will require efforts on at least three interconnected fronts. We must support more user-informed, co-production, and community-engaged efforts by further engaging individuals, businesses, policymakers, schools, public officials, and other decision-makers so that our science better aligns with their predictive information needs and decision contexts. We must enhance social and behavioral science expertise in our community, by further integrating people with this deep expertise and by partnering with their professional societies (e.g., Society for Risk Analysis). We must train, upskill, and robustly support our workforce to conduct more team-based science—including teams comprised of expertise representing different fields, sectors, and practices—to tackle the challenging problems that exist beyond the capabilities of a single discipline. If I have the honor of being elected to the AMS Council, I look forward to working with others in our community and beyond to advance these efforts and further strengthen the invaluable work of our Society. 

Julie L. Demuth works at the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) where she is a Project Scientist IV in the Mesoscale and Microscale Meteorology (MMM) Lab and the Lead of the NCAR Convergence Science Program. Julie has an interdisciplinary background in both physical and social science. Her BS is in meteorology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, her MS is in atmospheric science from Colorado State University, and her PhD is in communication with a focus on risk from Colorado State University. 

Julie conducts team-based research on hazardous weather risk communication, risk perception, and decision-making, including how these intersect with predictability and prediction capabilities. Her recent research includes: (1) collecting and analyzing repeated surveys of people (longitudinal surveys) during hurricane and atmospheric river events to learn whether, when, and how their risk assessments and behaviors change over time; (2) examining people’s understanding and perceptions of evolving probabilistic forecast information; and (3) developing and refining new model guidance tools–including numerical weather prediction ensemble and AI/ML guidance–for National Weather Service forecasters. As the Convergence Science Program Lead, Julie works to help the Earth System Science community understand, value, and foster convergence research, which deeply integrates disparate expertise to tackle vexing scientific and societal problems. Prior to joining NSF NCAR in 2005, Julie was a Program Officer at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine for the Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate. 

Julie is an AMS Fellow and recipient of the 2023 AMS Walter Orr Roberts Distinguished Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Sciences. Currently, Julie is an Advisory Committee Member of the AMS Policy Program Study on the Current Status and Necessary Actions to Ensure Future Success of the Weather Enterprise. 

Her love for weather and its effects on people stems from when 7 tornadoes hit Grand Island, NE, on June 3, 1980, where her family lived at the time.