Ed Nowottnick

Ed Nowottnick serves as the program scientist for the Radiation Sciences Program for the Atmosphere within NASA’s Earth Science Division’s Research and Analysis (R&A) Program since March 2025. As Radiation Sciences Program manager, his focus is reducing uncertainties in aerosols, clouds, their interaction, and processes impacting their lifetimes that ultimately impact the Earth’s atmospheric radiation budget. Ed is currently the NASA Program Scientist for Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols (MAIA) and Luce, and is the Deputy Program Scientist for Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecology (PACE) and Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-Infrared Experiment (PREFIRE) missions.

Prior to this role, Ed spent 15 years at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (5 as a civil servant), where he participated in global aerosol modeling efforts, airborne field campaigns, and spaceborne atmospheric lidar algorithm and instrument design development. Following development of aerosol lifecycle capabilities within the NASA Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) model, Ed was aerosol algorithm lead for the Cloud Aerosol Transport System (CATS) that flew on the International Space Station (ISS) from 2015-2017. Following this, Ed was the Instrument Scientist (IS) for the Atmospheric Lidar Instrument for Clouds and Aerosol Transport (ALICAT) planned for Atmosphere Observing System (AOS) Mission. Ed has been involved with numerous NASA field campaigns that utilized the NASA ER-2, DC-8, and Gulfstream aircraft (GOES-R cal/val, FIREX-AQ, PeliCoe, CAMP2Ex, IMPACTS 20-23, MOOSE, CPEX-AW, WH2yMSIE, GLOVE) and served as Project Scientist for the Convective Processes Experiment – Cabo Verde (CPEX-CV).

Ed received his B.S. in Physical Sciences (2005), M.S. in Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences (2011), and Ph.D. in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, all from the University of Maryland, College Park. Following his Ph.D., was a NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) Fellow from 2011-2014. When not at work, Ed likes to spend time with his family and enjoys the great outdoors, cooking, and baseball.