Fred W. Taylor

The 2005 David Bates Medal is awarded to Fred W. Taylor for his outstanding work in atmospheric physics, planetary sciences and molecular spectroscopy and infrared physics.

Fred Taylor has obtained his Ph.D at the University of Oxford in 1970.

He spent the first part of his career, until 1979, at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Californian Institute of Technology, in Pasadena (California). At JPL, he was leader of the Atmospheric Experiment Development Team, leader of the Pionner Venus Team and co-investigator of the Galileo NIMS Team.

In 1979, he moved to Oxford University as Acting Head of the Atmospheric Physics Department and Senior Research Fellow at Jesus College, up to 1984. He subsequently pursued a prestigious career as a professor. He was appointed as Professor of Atmospheric Physics in 1990, and Halley Professor of Physics in 2000. From 1990 to 2000, he was at the head of the sub-department of Atmospheric and Planetary Physics of Oxford University.

After 1979, he was Principal Investigator of two space experiments and co-investigator of seven others, including one on the Cassini Saturn Orbiter, now operating in the Solar System up to the year 2008.

Fred Taylor has published over 200 articles in referred journals, over 200 communications to scientific meetings, 5 books published, 1 in press, 2 more in preparation. Among his more important publications, let us mention his work on the determination of the deuterium abundance in Jupiter (in as early as 1973), on remote temperature sounding from space, on the meteorology and the thermal structure of Venus (1981–1995), and the Earth atmosphere. Recent studies concern the atmospheres of Venus, Jupiter and Saturn from Galileo and Cassini missions.

Fred Taylor has been nominated in a number of prestigious institutions, as for instance the Royal Meteorological Society and the Royal Astronomical Society. He has received many honours and awards.

Fred Taylor has played a lead role in the development of planetology in Europe.