DaNa L. Carlis, Ph.D., joined GSL as the Deputy Director in September 2020. He comes to GSL from the NOAA Weather Program Office (WPO), where he established the Earth Prediction Innovation Center (EPIC) Program. DaNa enjoys working between science, policy, and society to ensure better products and services for the American people. He is also passionate about leadership, diversity, and inclusion, and mentoring the next generation of scientists.
“I couldn’t be more grateful and excited to join GSL because of its focus on applied research and development, advanced technologies, and transitioning and improving research-to-operations with the National Weather Service (NWS). GSL aligns perfectly with my desire to provide better products and services to the American people. I’ve always wanted to do research that impacts people’s lives, and GSL is a premier NOAA research laboratory that provides innovative tools and services that lead to better decisions and ultimately save lives,” said Carlis. “As the GSL’s Deputy Director, I am committed to bringing strong leadership and listening skills along with a creative mind to continue to advance the GSL mission. In addition, I plan to continue to uphold GSL’s scientific prowess, which is displayed in our cutting-edge research portfolio that is widely recognized by the Weather Enterprise.”
DaNa attended Howard University in Washington, DC, and earned his B.S. degree in Chemistry (1999), and an M.S. (2002) and Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science (2007) as a graduate student of the NOAA Center for Atmospheric Science and Meteorology (NCAS-M). In 2002, DaNa accepted a fellowship from the NOAA Office of Education Educational Partnership Program (EPP) as a member of the Graduate Sciences Program and completed his M.S thesis research at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) conducting an analysis of SO2 cross-sections for the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) satellite. He completed his Ph.D. dissertation on the beautiful island of Oahu, Hawaii, titled “Numerical Simulations of Island-Scale Airflow and the Maui Vortex Under Summer Trade-wind Conditions.” DaNa was the second male to receive a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences since Howard’s inception in 1867.
DaNa credits NCAS-M and NOAA’s Educational Partnership Program/Minority-Serving Institution EPP/MSI Program for allowing him to pursue what he loves and providing a pathway to federal employment. DaNa has held positions at the NWS National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Environmental Modeling Center (EMC) as a research meteorologist working on NOAA’s Global Forecast System (GFS) Model (2007-2014), and as a policy advisor to NOAA’s Chief Scientist and NOAA’s Assistant Secretary of Environmental Observations and Prediction (2014-2016). DaNa is a graduate of NOAA’s Leadership Competency Development Program (LCDP) Class IX where he learned a great leadership lesson that’s been his mantra for the last few years and that’s to work in an environment where he’s comfortably uncomfortable.
DaNa is originally from Tulsa, OK. In his spare time, he enjoys cheering for his favorite sports team, the Oklahoma Sooners, mentoring boys from underrepresented communities that come from single-parent households, and traveling the world with his family. In 2016, he wrote a children’s book titled “MIT: Meteorologist in Training” and he’s published peer-reviewed papers. DaNa is married to Dr. Lydia Carlis, and they have a daughter, Dia Dannielle, who is a senior at Georgia State University.
