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Susan Joy Hassol
We are writing to nominate Susan Hassol for the 2011 Climate Change Communicator of the Year Award. We can think of no person who has contributed more to effective written and visual communication of scientific material from major national and international climate assessments. She has been an indispensable force in numerous Scientific Assessments from 2001 to 2009, including two National Climate Assessments, the Arctic Assessment, two major Synthesis and Assessment Reports, and two Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Assessments. Ms. Hassol’s contributions have not merely been one of crafting press releases or plain language summaries of these assessments. Rather, she was an integral part of the writing and illustrating of the reports themselves. She has provided guide sheets of frequently misunderstood words to scientists, and skillfully negotiated language among highly specialized scientists to ensure the material was understandable outside the scientific community. It is no small accomplishment to remain true to the scientific integrity of the material and yet at the same time effectively communicate the essences of the findings. Nationally, Ms. Hassol was the lead for the plain-language, easily accessible, National Climate Assessment of 2009, called the Global Climate Change Impacts (GCCI) report. Guiding the illustration team, the layout team, the editorial team, and the scientific team through every word and diagram, she delivered both a factual report and a beautiful, easily understood assessment. The result is very apparent to anyone who has picked up and read the GCCI report. Internationally, she acted as a scientific editor for the “Frequently Asked Questions” supplement to the 2007 IPCC report. She has been so intimately engaged with the scientific content of the assessments that she was listed as a Lead Author in the Arctic Assessment. In 2010, she helped the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration transform its dense “State of the Climate Report,” published by the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, into an easy-to-understand, well-illustrated, plain-language pamphlet aimed at the public. She coached numerous NOAA scientists on how to speak to the public about their scientific results to ensure effective communication of highly technical findings. Her efforts resulted in a successful press event and numerous press mentions of the key contents of the report. Through her impressive work, Ms. Hassol has gained the respect of the broad scientific community. She continues to be called on to provide key climate-related communications to scientists across the nation. She has been involved in communicating the findings of so many of the major assessments and reports over the last decade that she is truly a leader in transforming technical scientific information about climate change into words and illustrations that can be easily grasped and understood by non-specialists, policy-makers, and the general public. She is most deserving of the 2011 Climate Communicator of the Year Award. Nominated by:
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