Photo Credit: Penny Jennings UCLA climate scientist Karen McKinnon has been selected to receive the 2027 Henry G. Houghton Award from the American Meteorological Society, recognizing her emerging leadership in understanding climate variability, change and extremes. The Houghton Award is one of the society’s major early-career honors and recognizes outstanding research achievement in physical meteorology, physical climatology, atmospheric chemistry or hydrology.
McKinnon is an associate professor in UCLA’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, with joint appointments in the Department of Statistics and Data Science and the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. Her research group works at the intersection of climate science and statistics, developing methods to better understand how natural climate variability and human-caused climate change combine to shape weather and climate extremes — and what those changes mean for people and ecosystems.
“My research is motivated by trying to understand those aspects of climate science that can also help us make better, more informed decisions about climate and weather,” said McKinnon. “I am honored and grateful to receive this award, and thankful for the mentors, colleagues, and students that make the work possible.”
A major focus of McKinnon’s work is extreme heat. Her research seeks to distinguish the underlying physical and statistical processes that determine how temperatures vary and how the most extreme events are changing as the planet warms. Her work has also addressed drought, precipitation, wildfire risk and methods for reconstructing past climate, bringing together observations, climate models and statistical approaches to identify signals that can otherwise be difficult to separate from natural variability. Recent research involving McKinnon has contributed to understanding how human-caused warming is lengthening California’s fire season, while work from her group has explored the atmospheric and land-surface processes behind major heat waves and the predictability of precipitation.
“Karen is an extraordinary scientist whose work demonstrates how powerful new insights can emerge when we bring different disciplines and ways of thinking together,” said Jacob Bortnik, professor and chair of UCLA’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. “Her ability to combine rigorous climate science with sophisticated statistical approaches is helping us better understand some of the most consequential questions facing our field. This recognition from AMS is a wonderful acknowledgment of both what she has already accomplished and the tremendous impact we expect her work will continue to have.”
The Houghton Award adds to a rapidly growing list of honors for McKinnon. In 2024, she received a prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER Award providing more than $944,000 over five years to study how and why summertime temperature extremes are changing with global warming. The award followed her selection as a Packard Fellow in Science and Engineering in 2021 and a Kavli Fellow in 2023. She also received tenure at UCLA in 2024.
Together, those honors mark an especially promising period in McKinnon’s career as her research continues to sharpen scientists’ understanding of how a changing climate influences extreme heat and other hazards. Her selection for the Houghton Award recognizes both the impact of that work to date and her growing influence in climate science.
This award marks the latest in a series of wins for the AOS department. Just days earlier professor Rong Fu received the Rossby Medal – atmospheric sciences highest honor. And, earlier this Summer, the department celebrated the installation of no less than four new endowed chair appointments. “I am exceptionally proud of the growth and recognition AOS has received in recent years,” said Bortnik. “We have some of the best faculty and students in this field anywhere in the country and I look forward to seeing what future impact they will continue to have on society.”