TEPPER, MORRIS

TEPPER, MORRIS (1916– ), U.S. meteorologist. Tepper was born in Palestine and moved with his family to New York in 1922. He graduated with an M.A. in mathematics from Brooklyn College and gained his Ph.D. in fluid dynamics from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore (1952). He served as a meteorologist in the U.S. Air Force in the Pacific Theater (1943–45) during World War II. He joined the U.S. Weather Bureau as a research meteorologist in 1946 and was head of a team conducting research on local storms (1951–59). In 1959 he joined the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as a meteorologist in the office of space flight development, and later became director of meteorological systems and deputy director of the earth observations programs division. He was a special project officer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (1978–79). In 1979 he left NASA to become professor of mathematical physics at Capitol College in Laurel, Maryland. Tepper's research has concerned the origins and prediction of severe local storms. With NASA he supervised the introduction of satellite systems for forecasting local storms and global weather patterns, essential for terrestrial and space travel. He worked through the UN Committee on Space Research to promote international cooperation on space meteorology. (Michael Denman (2nd ed.)