American Meteorological Society Honors Alumna with Early-Career Achievement Award

An alumna of the University of Michigan Department of Climate and Space, Annareli Morales, Ph.D., has earned the Award for Early-Career Professional Achievement from the American Meteorological Society (AMS).

Morales is a first-generation scientist, who is also a woman and Mexican-American, rising through the ranks after being raised in a low-income, single-parent home in Cicero, Illinois. She received the early-career honors from AMS in recognition of her efforts to advance knowledge in mountain meteorology and highlight the participation of Hispanic and Latinx communities in science and service throughout the Society.

“I believe academia requires a radical cultural change to effectively meet the needs and passions of the new generations of scientists,” Morales said on her website. “I am passionate about inclusion, science communication, education and outreach, language justice, and mental health.” 

Morales works as an air quality policy analyst for Weld County in northeastern Colorado, where she serves as a resource on air-related topics for boards, staff, towns and cities, and the general public. Her previous roles include working as a scientist in hydrology applications for the NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory, in affiliation with CIRES (Cooperative Institute for Research In Environmental Sciences). She also devoted two years to scientific advancement as a post-doctoral fellow for UCAR, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.

Early in her career, Morales researched precipitation over mountains and the physical processes involved with cloud and precipitation development using numerical modeling and observational datasets. At NOAA, she contributed to developing a science plan based off the Study of Precipitation, the Lower Atmosphere and Surface for Hydrometeorology (SPLASH) 2021-2022 field campaign in the East River watershed in Colorado. The main theme of the research was understanding how well NOAA operational models can represent orographic precipitation and the associated mesoscale and microphysics processes.

Her research interests have ranged from mesoscale meteorology, mountain meteorology, and cloud microphysics, to bilingual science communication. In addition to physical science research, Morales actively pursues her passion for diversity, inclusion, science communication, and public outreach. She has devoted many hours to professional service, she leads outreach initiatives covering a range of climate sciences from air contaminants to climate change, and she has volunteered her mentorship to students of all ages.

Morales earned a Ph.D. in Atmospheric and Oceanic Science (now the U-M Department of Climate and Space) from the University of Michigan in 2019, after earning an M.S. in Atmospheric Science from Colorado State University and a B.S. in Atmospheric Science from the University of Illinois. Dr. Morales will be recognized formally during the 105th AMS Annual Meeting, which will take place January 12-16, 2025, in New Orleans, La.