Richard Washington

Richard Washington is a climate scientist whose motivation comes primarily from a fascination with how the weather and climate system operates. He has worked on climate models since their early days but also loves engaging with the real thing in the field. He has run numerous observational programmes, mostly in Africa, starting with the Bodele Dust Experiment in Chad in 1995 and including the Fennec project in the central Sahara which featured use of the UK research aircraft and the deployment of several tons of equipment in the deep core of the central Sahara. He has also run campaigns in southern Africa in Botswana and Namibia (DO4Models), Zambia (DRYCAB) as well as Cameroon. At Oxford University, he has supervised 24 doctoral students to successful completion. His favourite task of the year is teaching the first year climate course.