Charlotte DeMott selected for the 2025 Outstanding Alum award

Charlotte DeMott received her M.S. from the department in 1990 on a project entitled “Radar-Derived Latent Heating Rates in a Convective Storm”, studying with Prof. Tom Vonder Haar. She then received her Ph.D from the department in 1996, studying with Prof. Steve Rutledge. Her dissertation was entitled “The Vertical Structure and Modulation of TOGA COARE Convection: A Radar Perspective.”  Subsequent to graduation, DeMott was a postdoctoral fellow in our department before becoming a Research Scientist in 1998. DeMott achieved the rank of Senior Research Scientist in 2020. During her time at CSU, she has advised and mentored multiple undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows. 

Throughout her career, DeMott has conducted breakthrough research on tropical convection, ocean-atmosphere interactions, and tropical dynamics. In addition to gaining scientific inspiration by participating in the TOGA-COARE field experiment in the early 1990s, DeMott published important work on the vertical structure of convection that was observed during the field program (DeMott and Rutledge 1998 a,b). While keeping firmly rooted in the study of tropical convection, DeMott’s research interests soon expanded to encompass larger timescale tropical dynamics, including use of general circulation models such as the superparameterized CCSM to understand the dynamics of monsoons and tropical convectively coupled disturbances (e.g. DeMott et al. 2013; 2014). She also now leads the field in the study of ocean-atmosphere interactions on timescales ranging from diurnal through interannual, including seminal work on the role of ocean feedbacks to the Madden-Julian oscillation (DeMott et al. 2015). DeMott has published important reviews on such topics, in addition to fundamental research. She has done increasing work on the role of intraseasonal ocean-atmosphere interactions for Pacific warm pool expansion and the initiation of ENSO warm events. DeMott’s interest and passion for field observations has come full circle since the start of her career, and she is helping to spearhead planning for a proposed tropical Pacific Ocean field experiment called TEPEX to study ocean-atmosphere interaction processes associated with Pacific warm pool expansion. 

DeMott’s stature in the field is reflected in her prestigious leadership positions. Among other distinguished positions, she has been co-chair of the WMO WGNE Madden-Julian oscillation task force, member of Global Precipitation Experiment, a cross-WCRP initiative to accelerate advances in precipitation knowledge and prediction at different scales, co-chair of the US CLIVAR Process Study and Model Improvement Panel, co-chair of the S2S Prediction Ocean Subproject, and co-chair of the Air-Sea Transition Zone Study Group. DeMott has also had a large impact on education within our department. In addition to the mentoring and advising roles mentioned above, DeMott served as the Assistant Director for our NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program, and has been a member of the department’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee. Department alum Dr. Brandon Wolding nominated her for the ATS Outstanding Alum award.

Congratulations to DeMott on this richly deserved recognition!