David Schultz

David M. Schultz is Professor of Synoptic Meteorology and has been at The University of Manchester since 2009. He is a US citizen, born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  From 1996 to 2006, he worked for the NOAA/National Severe Storms Laboratory and the University of Oklahoma. In 2006, he became a professor of Experimental Meteorology at the University of Helsinki and Finnish Meteorological Institute.

In 2001, he won the American Meteorological Society Editor’s Award for Monthly Weather Review "for providing extremely thorough, timely, and constructive evaluations of a large number of manuscripts over a diverse range of topics, and for special assistance to the editors in evaluating controversial issues." He was bestowed with the Cleveland Abbe Award for Distinguished Service to the Atmospheric and Related Sciences by the American Meteorological Society “for outstanding contributions to scientific leadership in a broad range of atmosphere-related domains with tireless dedication to scientific communication, peer review, education and research excellence.”

In 2012, he was nominated by his students and won the Best Teacher in his School, as well as across all schools within the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences.  He was later awarded the university's Teaching Excellence Award in 2014 and 2017. In 2023, he was awarded the Inaugural Teaching Award from the Royal Meteorological Society.

He was Chief Editor for Monthly Weather Review (2008–2022) and is the Director of the Centre for Crisis Studies and Mitigation, an interdisciplinary university network to bring together researchers in natural hazards and their human impacts.

He has published more than 200 articles on topics in synoptic- and mesoscale meteorology, forecasting, cloud and precipitation microphysics, and scientific publishing. He is also the author of

Eloquent Science: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Better Writer, Speaker, and Atmospheric Scientist, 

which has been translated into Chinese (China Meteorological Press 2021).

Convective storms, synoptic- and mesoscale meteorology, forecasting, cloud and precipitation microphysics, integrating weather and social science research, Earth history, climate and paleoclimate modeling, air chemistry, teaching, and scientific publishing.

• Atmospheric Science

My research is eclectic and fits into a number of different disciplines. It may be because I have interests in all the Earth sciences (my undergraduate degree is in geology). Or, it may be that I just like following my nose on interesting research projects.

I have had the benefit of working with numerous excellent scientists and students in my career from all over the world. Such collaborations inspire and fuel my research interests. Below are just some of the topics that my research group is working on.

Cyclones and fronts, convective storms, scientific communication, climate change, Earth history and climate, weather and health (including COVID-19), operational forecasting, clear-air turbulence, convective initiation, snow microphysics, weather and society, ocean dynamics, Amazon deforestation, ocean wave dynamics, circulation of the Adriatic Sea, effect of wind farms on weather and climate.