{"id":2860,"date":"2025-09-28T08:55:54","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T08:55:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/?p=2860"},"modified":"2026-05-27T18:37:47","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T18:37:47","slug":"ben-kirtman-named-dean-of-the-rosenstiel-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idsc.miami.edu\/magazine\/ben-kirtman-named-dean-of-the-rosenstiel-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Ben Kirtman Named Dean of the Rosenstiel School"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was the year Southern Europe seared, as a vicious heat wave pushed temperatures well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in several countries across the region.<\/p>\n

It was the year heavy rains spawned massive floods and landslides throughout southern China, killing scores of people, and the year thousands perished in Bangladesh when powerful Cyclone Sidr battered that impoverished nation.<\/p>\n

And it was the year an innovative scientist and researcher, who employed mathematics to push the limits of climate predictability from days to decades, arrived at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science<\/a> as a full professor of meteorology and physical oceanography.<\/p>\n

\"University<\/p>\n

\"BenBen Kirtman hit the ground running as a newcomer to the school in 2007, taking a pioneering approach to address weather and climate conundrums\u2014such as creating a model capable of producing accurate, long-range forecasts for a multitude of weather events weeks in advance.<\/p>\n

Now, 18 years after his arrival, Kirtman takes the reins of one of the world\u2019s top centers for global earth science research and education as he becomes the Rosenstiel School\u2019s new dean on August 1. He succeeds Roni Avissar, an internationally recognized atmospheric scientist who has served in that post since 2009.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe importance of the Rosenstiel School and the research it conducts in helping to mitigate environmental challenges couldn\u2019t be overstated.\u201d<\/h3>\n

Kirtman will lead a school comprising five academic departments\u2014from atmospheric sciences, his field of specialty, to marine biology and ecology, environmental science and policy, marine geosciences, and ocean sciences. It is a school that includes a 75-foot-long wind-wave tank capable of simulating Category 5 hurricane conditions. It also operates a 78-acre satellite reception and analysis center in southern Miami-Dade County, and its impact extends far beyond its Virginia Key campus, as it runs an aerosol monitoring station on the island nation of Barbados.<\/p>\n

Research on tropical cyclones, coral reefs, climate variability, ocean dynamics, and sharks are among the school\u2019s signature programs. And its research is spread in so many other areas, spanning just about every aspect of the Earth sciences imaginable.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s what has Kirtman ecstatic about his new post. \u201cThis is a great time to push the Rosenstiel School to new heights,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is a particularly challenging time, so expanding on our greatness is going to take some serious innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vital Importance<\/h4>\n

With Atlantic hurricane seasons becoming more intense, wildfires destroying tens of thousands of acres every year, and deadly floods such as the one in Texas where more than 120 are confirmed dead, \u201cthe importance of the Rosenstiel School and the research it conducts in helping to mitigate such environmental challenges couldn\u2019t be overstated,\u201d Kirtman said.<\/p>\n

\"2025<\/a>

PHOTO CREDIT: Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThe floods in Texas are an example of how challenging environmental problems can be,\u201d he explained. \u201cIt\u2019s much harder than rocket science, and we have a long way to go in creating better forecasts, being able to issue warnings with longer lead times, and having the language in our warnings compel people to act for their own personal safety. So, there\u2019s the science angle but also a social science perspective. And all of that is integrated into everything Rosenstiel does.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBen\u2019s been one of our academic superstars since day one.\u201d<\/h3>\n

Guillermo \u201cWilly\u201d Prado, the University\u2019s interim executive vice president for academic affairs and provost, said “Ben\u2019s been one of our academic superstars since day one. Through his extensive research, he\u2019s done an exceptional job of setting an agenda and a vision and seeing it through. And particularly, he understands research and priorities. He\u2019s a decision-maker and very well respected, not only among the faculty and students, but also among the staff. He has the gift needed to succeed as dean of the Rosenstiel School.\u201d<\/p>\n

Storied Achievements<\/h4>\n

Kirtman\u2019s many accomplishments run the gamut. As a topflight researcher, he combined the resources of the Rosenstiel School with entities like NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to create a forecast model capable of predicting environmental hazards up to 30 days out.<\/p>\n

The Subseasonal Experiment, or SubX, proved remarkably accurate, forecasting the severe cold wave that hit the midwestern United States and eastern Canada in early 2019; the Fourth of July heat wave that enveloped Alaska later that year; and the extreme rainfall from Tropical Storm Isaias that drenched the Caribbean and U.S. East Coast in the summer of 2020. SubX also forecasted nearly a month in advance the collapse in 2021 of the Arctic polar vortex that brought freezing temperatures, snow, and ice to many parts of the U.S.<\/p>\n

\"CIMASKirtman also serves as director of the Rosenstiel School\u2019s NOAA Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS), which brings together the research and educational resources of 10 partner universities to provide research opportunities, educational training, and outreach to students and postdoctoral scientists involved in NOAA-funded research. In addition, Kirtman is deputy director of the University\u2019s Frost Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC), where he also serves as director of its Earth Systems Science program.<\/p>\n

In 2023, he was named the inaugural William R. Middelthon III Endowed Chair of Earth Sciences, one of the 112 new endowed positions, called Centennial Talents, created as part of the University\u2019s successful Ever Brighter campaign. The endowed chair supports Kirtman\u2019s research on disaster preparedness and climate variability.<\/p>\n

Kirtman is the recipient of a trio of grants totaling more than $3 million from the National Science Foundation and NOAA that are allowing him to collaborate with Rosenstiel School colleagues and former students across the country to improve prediction tools for extreme weather and climate events.<\/p>\n

He was elected as a fellow of the American Meteorological Society in 2018 and in 2023 as a fellow of the American Geophysical Union.<\/p>\n

Groundbreaking Research<\/h4>\n

Kirtman earned his bachelor\u2019s degree in applied mathematics from the University of California San Diego, followed by master\u2019s and doctoral degrees in meteorology and physical oceanography from the University of Maryland College Park. But one might say he cut his teeth in the field of atmospheric sciences in, of all places, the basement of his Southern California home.<\/p>\n

During the 1982-1983 El Ni\u00f1o\u2014a climate pattern associated with warmer-than-normal water in the Pacific Ocean along the equator that drives wet and stormy weather in some parts of the world\u2014the basement of his Santa Barbara home would flood during a heavy downpour.<\/p>\n

Kirtman had to operate a pump to keep the room from \u201cturning into a makeshift swimming pool,\u201d he recalled. \u201cThere were so many times when that pump seemed on the verge of breaking down.\u201d So, he had to babysit it, sleeping in the family room next to the basement and setting an alarm to go off every half hour to wake up and turn the pump on or off.<\/p>\n

Those basement-flooding and pump-sitting days were life-changing, igniting Kirtman\u2019s interest in and fueling his fascination with weather and climate. Forecasting and the study of atmospheric science, he said, has advanced immensely since his youth.<\/p>\n