David Burridge named new Harry Otten Foundation Board Member

Dr. David M. Burridge, former Director General of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, was recently named a member of the Harry Otten Foundation Board of Directors. Dr. Burridge has a long record of leadership and achievement across a wide spectrum of work in operational weather forecasting. 

The Directors on the Harry Otten Foundation Board serve three-year terms, which are eligible for renewal one time. Dr. Burridge’s first term begins 1 January 2017.

After his university education and a one-year postdoctoral appointment at the Florida State University, he was employed by the UK Met Office (1970 to 1975) where he worked on the development and assessment of operational forecasting models.

In 1975 he joined the newly established European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).  He spent most of his professional career at ECMWF (1975 to 2004) and in January 1991 he was appointed to the position of Director and Chief Executive of ECMWF.  During his time at ECMWF, he was the Director for more than 13 years, he led the research program for eight years and prior to this he designed and built the first ECMWF global forecasting model.

In 2005 he was employed by the “World Meteorological Organisation (WMO)” (Geneva) to establish, direct and manage the WMO International Programme Office for THORPEX – the main aims of THORPEX were the reduction and mitigation of the effects of natural disasters and the adverse effects of weather, and the realization of societal, economic and environmental benefits of improved weather forecasts.  Prior, to retiring from THORPEX in late 2011, David established the WWRP Polar project and the Sub-seasonal to Seasonal Prediction project.

He has chaired the UK Universities’ Global Atmospheric Modelling Programme (UGAMP) Scientific Steering Group, advised both the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA on satellite instruments to observe the earth, advised the European Commission and CERN on high speed computing and chaired international WMO working groups on weather forecasting research.

He has been a fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society (RMS) since 1970 and served on its Council between 1975 and 1978 and was a Vice-President for 1990 to 1992 and 1999 to 2000.  He was elected President of the RMS for 2000 to 2002.  During his Presidency, he established the societies’ first real long-term strategy, one element of which was the creation of a regular programme of national conferences on the environmental sciences.

David served on the governing Council of the European Meteorological Society (EMS) and was the President of the EMS for the three-year period 2005 to 2008 and during this period revised the society’s organizational structure and implemented a new strategy.

Dr. Burridge has many honors and awards, including Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for services to meteorology, Honorary Doctorate of Science from the University of Reading, Honorary Fellowship from the University of Swansea, Silver Medal from the European Meteorological Society, and Honorary fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society.

Currently, David is a full member the UK Met Office Board.