Dr. William Hooke

William H. Hooke, Ph.D., is Associate Executive Director of the American Meteorological Society, where he has been a Senior Policy Fellow since 2000. He directed their Policy Program from 2001-2013. His policy research interests include: natural disaster reduction; historical precedents as they illuminate present-day policy; and the nature and implications of changing national requirements for weather, water and climate science and services. Since 2001 he has formulated and led the AMS Summer Policy Colloquium, a ten-day immersion in the Washington, DC, science policy process; over 500 early- and mid-career scientists have participated in this program over the past 15 years.

He worked for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) from 1967-2000, in a series of research and management positions, including Deputy Chief Scientist and Acting Chief Scientist. He also served as Senior Scientist to then-Commerce-Secretary William Daley. Between 1993-2000, he chaired the U.S. Interagency Subcommittee for Natural Disaster Reduction, operated out of the White House. He chaired the National Academy of Science/National Research Council (NAS/NRC) Disasters Roundtable from 2003-2009. He chaired the NAS/NRC committee on Private-Public Collaboration to Build Community Disaster Resilience from 2008-2010. He has authored or co-authored more than 60 peer-reviewed papers, and two books: Waves in the Atmosphere: Gravity Waves and Infrasound, Earl E. Gossard and William H. Hooke, 456 pp., Elsevier (North Holland), Amsterdam, The Netherlands (1975), and Living on the Real World: How Thinking and Acting Like Meteorologists Will Help Save the Planet, 280 pp, American Meteorological Society, Boston, Massachusetts (2014). He blogs at Living on the Real World.

He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2006. In 2014 he received the AMS Joanne Simpson Mentorship Award. He was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2015.

He received a B.S. in Physics (Honors) from Swarthmore College in 1964; an S.M. in Geophysical Sciences from the University of Chicago in 1966; and a Ph.D. in Geophysical Sciences from the University of Chicago in 1967.