On January 13-14, 2016, a special symposium was held at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans to honor SoMAS professor Marvin Geller as part of the 2016 Annual Conference of the American Meteorological Society . The Marvin Geller Symposium featured 24 oral presentations and 12 poster presentations on four research subjects to which Prof. Geller has made significant contributions: atmospheric tides, waves, stratospheric ozone, and stratospheric-troposphere interactions. Many of Prof. Geller’s former students, postdocs, and colleagues attended the symposium.
Prof. Geller retired from full-time employment at SoMAS in 2015. The Geller Symposium is a tribute to honor him for his many contributions to atmospheric sciences and to several organizations and many international programs. Participants at the symposium presented on how Professor Geller’s research has improved our understanding of stratospheric circulation and change, the interactions between the stratosphere and troposphere, the ozone budget, the solar-terrestrial relations, the dynamic structure of the tropopause, and atmospheric gravity waves. Among the many services to the scientific community, Professor Geller played a key role in the successful launch of NASA’s TRMM project. His works towards the successful conclusion of the Montreal Protocol was a contribution of lasting value in global environmental protection. He led the established of the SPARC program in the World Climate Research Program.
For his contributions to the science and the community, he has been recognized as a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union. He has been chosen as a Lifetime National Associate of the National Academies and has been awarded the NASA Distinguished Service Medal. He was elected to be President of the Atmospheric Sciences Section of the American Geophysical Union?.
Professor Geller got his Ph.D degree in 1969 at MIT. He was on the faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1969 to 1977. He worked in the University of Miami from 1977 to 1990 before went to NASA where he was Chief of the Laboratory for Atmospheres at the Goddard Space Flight Center. Prof. Geller came to Stony Brook Brook University in 1989. At Stony Brook, Professor Geller served terms as Director of the Institute for Terrestrial and Planetary Atmospheres and as Dean of the Marine Sciences Research Center.
The Geller Symposium was organized by Dr. Susan Avery, former Director of the Woods Hole Institution of Oceanography who was Professor Geller’s 5th Ph.D student, by Profs. Edmund Chang and Sultan Hameed of SoMAS, and by Dr. Jie Gong of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center who also graduated from SoMAS advised by Professor Geller.
Congratulations to Prof. Marv Geller for his achievements and we wish him the best in his retirement!
