Sharon Nicholson is a Professor of Meteorology at Florida State University, where she holds the rank of Distinguished Research Professor and also serves as the H. and K. Lettau Professor of Climatology. She has previously held positions at the University of Bonn (West Germany), Clark University (Massachusetts), and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (Colorado). She is acknowledged as an international expert on the climate of arid and semi-arid regions, having been active in arid lands research for 40 years, and is best known for her work on climatic variability in Africa. Professor Nicholson's work has been acknowledged by awards and medals from the American Meteorological Society and the Royal Meteorological Society of the UK. Her photographic skills have seen her placed as finalist in the National Geographic Travel Photography Contest and the American Geophysical Union's Geophysical Images Competition.