Sharon Nicholson
American meteorology professor
Sharon E. Nicholson is a meteorology professor at Florida State University (FSU) in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science. Nicholson has been teaching about and researching climates of Africa. Nicholson has earned the Humboldt Award, the Fulbright Global Scholar award, and a National Science Foundation Award.
Biography
Sharon Nicholson got her bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees in meteorology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 1985, she became the only female faculty member at the FSU Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science, beginning as an associate professor. In 1991, she was promoted to full professor of meteorology, and as of 2020, continues to work and teach at the FSU.
Research
Paired with Compton Tucker, a NASA Goddard Space Flight Center scientist, Nicholson disproved a worldwide claim about recent Sahara desert spreading. They studied nearly two decades of Sahel satellite observations to confirm that the desert ebbs and flows, but does not enlarge. Nicholson also established that the Sahara's behavior depends on climate cycles (year-to-year rainfalls and droughts). Their study was published in the journal Ambio.
Nicholson also teamed up with Dorcas N. Leposo, a research meteorologist from the Botswana Meteorological Services, to establish that El Niño was the primary cause of drought and famine in Botswana.
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