David Battisti, the Tamaki Endowed Chair, is an atmospheric scientist who looks at the natural variation in the global climate system. He is especially interested in understanding how the interactions between the ocean, atmosphere, land and sea ice lead to variability in climate on time scales from a few months to a few decades. He also studies the impact of climate variability and climate change on global food security, and the mechanisms responsible for the remarkable “abrupt” global climate changes evident throughout the last glacial period. He has received many awards both for research and teaching throughout his career, most recently the Sustainability Science Award from the Ecological Society of America and the Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal from the American Meteorological Society, the highest award from the AMS. Additionally, he is a Fellow at the Food Security Institute at Stanford University, and is an elected Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.