Eugenia Kalnay was awarded a Ph.D in Meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1971. Following a position as Associate Professor in the same department, she became Chief of the Global Modeling and Simulation Branch at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (1983-1987). From 1987 to 1997 she was Director of the Environmental Modeling Center (US National Weather Service) and in 1998 was awarded the Robert E. Lowry endowed chair at the University of Oklahoma. In 1999 she became the Chair of the Department of Meteorology at the University of Maryland. Professor Kalnay is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, is the recipient of two gold medals from the US Department of Commerce and the NASA Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement, and has received the Jule Charney Award from the American Meteorological Society. The author of more than 100 peer reviewed papers on numerical weather prediction, data assimilation and predictability, Professor Kalnay is a key figure in this field and has pioneered many of the essential techniques.