John Merrill - biographical information

John Merrill is an atmospheric scientist who uses meteorological techniques to study the long range transport of substances in the atmosphere and the impacts of meteorological processes on the environment. He received an AB in Physics at the University of California, Berkeley (1968); an MS in Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1970) and a PhD from the University of Colorado (1976) in a department then called AstroGeophysics. At the University of Miami School of Marine and Atmospheric Science from 1977-1981 he refined techniques of isentropic trajectory analysis. At the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography he has collaborated with atmospheric chemists, volcanologists, paleooceanographers and physical oceanographers, applying trajectory and other techniques using event-specific data to a variety of problems. He conducts observations of the distribution of ozone using balloon-borne ozonesondes in ongoing weekly (and more frequent during intensive campaign) vertical profiles. He teaches a graduate-level course in climate and radiation, and an undergraduate course in oceanography and global change. Merrill’s research has been funded by NSF (primarily the Atmospheric Chemistry program), NOAA (Office of Global Programs) and NASA (currently AURA satellite instrument validation in Earth Sciences). He has been active in the Unidata program, in governance of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research and in outreach education efforts. He served as Associate Dean of the School of Oceanography over a period of five years, ending in 2002. He and his wife Kathleen Gremel are the parents of a son and daughter, who are young adults.