Irish Met Society Honorary Life Members

David Ball

Mr David Ball is a Hydrogeologist. His primary degree was in Natural Sciences (Geology) from TCD in 1971. His Masters in Hydrogeology is from London University in 1972. He has worked as a consultant since then. Initially, he worked on long projects overseas in Africa, Arabia and Asia. He jointly directed and supervised a $10 million drilling investigation in Arabia for four years, and specialised in hydrochemistry and environmental isotopes. He subsequently was part of a team that set up and trained a Groundwater Research Department for Malaysia, and National Water Resources Institute for Nigeria. He returned to Ireland in 1985, and, with others, set up an on-campus consultancy which grew to over thirty staff. In 1992, he left to work as an independent hydrogeologist. Most of his work since 1985 has been in Ireland; for regulatory and local authorities, industries, farmers and local groups, on matters relating to groundwater supplies, development of new water sources, drilling standards and planning. He has continued to work overseas for short periods in North Korea, Sudan, Somalia, Chad, Malaysia, Spain and Mali. He has been the President of the Irish Group of the IAH. He was elected to the RIA Geosciences Committee in 2004.

Prof. Ray Bates

Ray Bates is Adjunct Professor of Meteorology in the Meteorology and Climate Centre, School of Mathematical Sciences, UCD. He obtained a B.Sc. in Physics from UCD in 1962 and a PhD in meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1969. He spent his early career in Met Éireann, where he held the positions of Head of Research and Assistant Director. From 1987 to 1995 he was a Senior Scientist and Branch Head in the Laboratory for Atmospheres at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre. From 1995 to 2004, he was Professor of Meteorology at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen. His current research is in global climate feedbacks. Prof. Bates is a member of the Royal Irish Academy and of the Academia Europaea. He was President of the Irish Meteorological Society (2004-08). He was awarded the Vilhelm Bjerknes Medal of the European Geosciences Union in 2009.

Prof. Fedor Mesinger

Fedor Mesinger is a Visiting Senior Research Scientist at the Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC) of the University of Maryland, and is the PI of the long-term Numerical Simulation of Weather and Climate project of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade. He is one of the two main designers of the NCEP's Eta model (e.g., http://etamodel.cptec.inpe.br/), and in the early two-thousands at NCEP was the lead PI of the five-year North American Regional Reanalysis (NARR) project. He is active in numerical modeling, model verification, and regional climate studies. Previously, Fedor worked at the University of Belgrade, where he spent about half of his career in various academic positions; and during that time also had longer-term visiting positions at NCAR, Boulder CO, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, and GFDL, Princeton, NJ. He is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society, and is the recipient of the Vilhelm Bjerknes medal of the European Geophysical Society (EGS) for 2001. He has a doctorate in meteorology from the University of Belgrade, and is a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade.

Dr Aodhagán Roddy

Following an M.Sc. in Physics at University College Galway, Aodhagán carried out postgraduate work at the University of Edinburgh and postdoctoral research at the Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University. He lectured in the Department of Physics, NUI Galway but has now retired.  His main research interests were in the areas of cloud physics (more recently, mesospheric clouds) and atmospheric methane.  In recent years he was a member of the Royal Irish Academy's Committee on Climate Change (including a period as chairman), the Academy's Geosciences Committee and the Irish National Committee for the International Year of Planet Earth.

Claude Sales

1977-1981  High school degree mechanical engineer (University Luxembourg); 1981-1983  Training for aeronautical forecasters (Airport Luxembourg); 1983-1984  Forecaster school DWD (Neustadt an der Weinstrasse, Germany); Since 1983 aeronautical forecaster for the meteorological and climatological office at the airport Luxembourg; Since 1999 representing the Luxembourg Met Service at the WGCEF (Working Group on Cooperation of European Forecasters); Since 2010 Head of the Luxembourg Meteorological National Service.