I am honored to be nominated for President of the AMS, a society I’ve belonged to and participated in since 1987. The coming years will be challenging ones for the atmospheric and related environmental science communities and AMS. However, there are enormous opportunities to serve those who make their careers in advancing knowledge and providing the resulting products and services, and those who utilize that information to protect life, health, and property, and support environmentally-informed decision making on all spatial and temporal scales.  With recent and projected changes in the intensity, frequency, and distribution of extreme events, the work of the AMS, its members, and partners has never been more important for the affected communities.

Changes in technology, policy, and work approaches mean that the AMS must proactively evolve the way it runs its meetings, publications programs, and routine operations. Recent and ongoing evolution in the contributions of academia, industry, government, and NGOs to our disciplines, as well as changes in technology itself (e.g., artificial intelligence/machine learning, computing, satellite constellations) require AMS to co-evolve, taking advantage of the new capabilities and participants. 

In particular, AMS will need to adapt to changes in government support and the organizations that provide it, the continuing politicization of climate, and increasing public distrust of science. To meet its priorities for the 2020s, AMS must remain an organization that constructively engages and welcomes all interested and talented individuals and institutions  while similarly ensuring that the services our community produces benefit all of society.  Navigating these topics while maintaining the AMS’s financial security and scientific integrity will be critical. With my combination of disciplinary knowledge, management and budget experience, familiarity with AMS and the weather-water-climate enterprise, and collegial approach to problem-solving and relationship building, I am well-positioned to help lead AMS through these dynamic times. 

Jack A. Kaye retired earlier this year after a 41-year career at NASA as a researcher, program manager, and executive at NASA. He started as a stratospheric ozone researcher at the Goddard Space Flight Center in 1983, joined Headquarters to manage the Atmospheric Composition Modeling and Analysis Program in 1990, and was promoted to run NASA’s Earth Science research program in 1999. In this role he managed a budget of some $500M/year providing scientific oversight of NASA’s research in all components of Earth System Science as well as enabling activities in airborne science, scientific computing, space geodesy, early career research, and education. He has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the NASA-USGS Pecora Award (Individual) in 2024, the NASA Distinguished Service Medal in 2022, and three Meritorious Senior Executive awards from the Office of Personnel Management. He was elected as a Fellow by AMS and AAAS. He served on the AMS Awards Nomination Committee and Fellows Committee and was an active participant in the AMS Policy and Education Programs. He has played a leadership role  in interagency coordination of Earth Science effort; he was NASA’s long-time principal for the US Global Change Research Program, and representative to (and chair for one year) of the Interdepartmental Committee for Meteorological Services and Supporting Research. He was a founding co-chair of the Committee on Research and Innovation of the Interagency Council to Advance Meteorological Services. Internationally, he chaired the World Meteorological Organization’s Expert Team on Satellite Systems and then served as vice chair of its Expert Team on Space Systems and Utilization and was active in bilateral and multilateral efforts in remote sensing and climate research. He has degrees in chemistry from Adelphi University (BA) and the California Institute of Technology (PhD) and did post-doctoral work at the US Naval Research Laboratory.