UEA academic receives award from the Royal Meteorological Society
By: Communications
Daniel Skinner, Senior Research Associate based in the Climatic Research Unit, School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia (UEA) has been named the newest recipient of The Malcolm Walker Award for New Environmental Researchers by the Royal Meteorological Society.
The Royal Meteorological Society, which began in 1850, is the UK’s professional and learned society for weather and climate. Its annual awards, considered one of the most prestigious accolades in meteorology, have a history dating back to 1901.
The Malcolm Walker Award was created ‘for emerging researchers who have undertaken their research in the UK and/or sponsored by a UK body. The candidate's research should have brought new insights into an aspect of the environmental sciences, which includes elements of meteorology and/or oceanography’.
Dan, who studied for both his Master’s and PhD in the School of Mathematics at UEA, focused his studies on the links between the weather in different parts of the world, and how these links change over long time scales. Understanding of these links - and how they change - is key to weather prediction, especially in a future which will see rapid changes in our climate system.
His published PhD papers, which led to him receiving the Malcolm Walker Award, have furthered understanding of how climate models - used to predict the future climate - capture the interaction of different weather systems, and of how these interactions have changed over the past fifty years.
Dan said:
"It is a huge privilege to be awarded the 2024 Malcolm Walker Award, and I am extremely grateful to RMetS for the honour. To stand in such esteemed company alongside previous recipients of this award is very humbling, as many of them have inspired me to become the researcher I am today."
Dan has always placed a special emphasis on the communication of his science as being of equal importance to the science itself. After winning a poster prize at the 2021 RMetS Student and Early Career Scientists Conference, he was awarded an RMetS Science Engagement Fellowship working in the Science Engagement team.
Speaking about the support he received while studying at UEA, Dan said:
“It is because of my PhD supervisors, Profs Adrian Matthews and David Stevens, that I have not only been able to grow as a scientist, but also find such joy in this amazing subject. I cannot thank them enough for their patience, wisdom, and kindness over last few years, and I look forward to seeing what more we can discover in the future.”
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