Dr. Shepherd is Director of the University of Georgia’s Atmospheric Sciences Program and Professor in the Department of Geography. In 2013, he was named an endowed UGA Athletic Association Professor. Prior to UGA, Dr. Shepherd spent 12 years as a Research Meteorologist at NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center and was Deputy Project Scientist for the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, which launches in 2014.
Dr. J. Marshall Shepherd is a leading international expert in the area of weather, climate, and atmospheric related sciences. Dr. Shepherd was the 2013 President of American Meteorological Society (AMS), the nation’s largest and oldest professional/science society in the atmospheric and related sciences. He is only the 2nd African American to hold this post.
President Bush honored him on May 4th 2004 at the White House with the Presidential Early Career Award for pioneering scientific research. Dr. Shepherd is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society. Dr. Shepherd is frequently sought as an expert on weather, climate, and remote sensing. He routinely appears on CBS Face The Nation, The Today Show, CNN, Fox News, The Weather Channel and several others.
Dr. Shepherd is also frequently asked to present findings and results to key leaders at NASA, Congress, Department of Defense, and to officials from foreign countries. In February 2013, Dr. Shepherd briefed the U.S. Senate on climate change and extreme weather. He has also written several editorials for the Washington Post, Atlanta Journal Constitution, and numerous other outlets and has been featured in Time Magazine, Popular Mechanics, and NPR Science Friday. He is also a contributing author to Ebony Magazine.
Dr. Shepherd currently serves on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Science Advisory Board and the Earth Science Subcommittee of the NASA Advisory Council. He was a member of the United Nations World Meteorological Organization steering committee on aerosols and precipitation, 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR4 contributing author team, a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) panel considering the security implications of climate change on U.S. Naval operations, and a NAS Committee on Urban Meteorology. Dr. Shepherd is a past editor for both the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology and Geography Compass, respectively.
