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Bernard N. Meisner, deputy chief of the NWS Southern Region Scientific Services Division, has been selected as a recipient of the 2005 Carnegie Mellon Alumni Merit Award. Selected by the Carnegie Mellon Alumni Association, Meisner is one of only six individuals nationwide to receive this prestigious honor. The award recognizes him for "exceptional accomplishment in his chosen profession, to which he has brought a degree of progress and has become a distinguished leader."

During the last three decades, Meisner has earned a reputation as an outstanding scientist, educator, and innovative manager. As deputy chief of the Southern Region's Scientific Services Division, he is responsible for professional training, technological applications, and collaboration with the academic community. His duties include providing training and technical support to nearly 1000 meteorologists and hydrologists in 10 states, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

He has also served on the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Oklahoma, and the University of St. Thomas in Houston. He has conducted research at the Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research in Honolulu, Hawaii; the NWS's Climate Prediction Center in Washington, D.C.; and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service's Forest Fire Laboratory in Riverside, California.

Meisner is the recipient of numerous NOAA and NWS awards. With particular interest in tropical meteorology, fire weather, numerical weather prediction, and applied climatology, he is the author of dozens of articles in scientific and professional publications. His work includes the reference paper on El Ni�o for AMS's Project DataStreme.

Meisner earned a bachelor's degree in physics and German from Carnegie Mellon University in 1971, and a master's degree (1976) and a doctorate (1978) in meteorology from the University of Hawaii.

Meisner is an AMS Fellow and CCM. He is also a member and past vice president of the National Weather Association (NWA), and was honored as the NWA's Member of the Year in 2000 for his significant contributions to the association.

The 2005 Alumni Merit Award was presented by Carnegie Mellon President Jared L. Cohon during a homecoming weekend ceremony on the university's campus in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in October.