Professor Alan J Thorpe, ECMWF’s previous Director-General, has been made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to environmental science and research.
During his time as Director-General (July 2011 to December 2015), Alan oversaw the restructuring of ECMWF and negotiations for the Centre to implement two of the EU’s Copernicus services. He was instrumental in setting up the Scalability Programme and was an advocate of Earth system modelling. His previous positions include chief executive of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), director of the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, and head of the Department of Meteorology at the University of Reading.