PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Peter Caldwell

Peter Caldwell is an atmospheric scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory whose work links cloud-resolving climate models, exascale computing and machine learning. A mathematician by training, he earned a PhD in atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington and joined Livermore as a postdoctoral researcher in 2007. He led the Simple Cloud-Resolving E3SM Atmosphere Model (SCREAM) from 2018 to 2025, and its team won the inaugural ACM Gordon Bell Prize for Climate Modelling in 2023. In 2023, he was also an author of ClimSim, a dataset for hybrid physics-ML climate emulation that received an outstanding paper award in the NeurIPS Datasets and Benchmarks track. Since 2025, he is Principal Investigator of the Department of Energy's Energy Exascale Earth System Model project.

Badges

Timeline

  1. 1999–2007

    From mathematics to atmospheric science

    He earns a BS in mathematics in 1999 and an MS in mathematics in 2001 at Western Washington University. In 2007, he completes a PhD in atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington under Christopher Bretherton, studying how stratocumulus clouds respond to warming.

  2. 2007–2009

    Postdoc at Livermore

    He joins Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 2007 as a postdoctoral researcher, working with Dave Bader on regional atmospheric modeling. In 2009, he becomes a staff scientist there.

  3. 2014–2022

    CESM atmosphere working group co-chair

    From 2014 to 2022, he is deputy group leader of LLNL's Cloud Processes Research team. Between 2015 and 2021, he co-chairs the Atmosphere Model Working Group of the Community Earth System Model.

  4. 2018–2025

    Leading the SCREAM model

    He leads the Simple Cloud-Resolving E3SM Atmosphere Model (SCREAM) from 2018 to 2025. SCREAM combines fluid dynamics, microphysics, moist turbulence and radiation in a global atmosphere model built for fine-resolution simulation on exascale computers.

  5. 2022–2024

    Heading Livermore's climate group

    He leads LLNL's Climate Modeling Group from 2022 to 2024. His Laboratory Directed Research and Development project 22-ERD-052 aims to use machine-learning-based nudging to emulate the Department of Energy's global cloud-resolving atmosphere model from coarse-resolution simulations.

  6. 2023

    ClimSim at NeurIPS 2023

    He is among the authors of ClimSim, a dataset of 5.7 billion pairs of input and output vectors from multi-scale climate simulations, built so that machine-learning emulators can stand in for high-resolution physics inside climate simulators. NeurIPS names the paper an Outstanding Datasets and Benchmarks Paper in the dataset category in 2023.

  7. 2023

    Gordon Bell Prize for Climate Modelling

    The SCREAM team he leads wins the first ACM Gordon Bell Prize for Climate Modelling at the SC23 conference in Denver in 2023. SCREAM is the first global cloud-resolving model to run on an exascale supercomputer, reaching 1.26 simulated years per day on 8,192 nodes of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Frontier.

  8. Since 2025

    Principal Investigator of E3SM

    In May 2025, the Energy Exascale Earth System Model project names him its Principal Investigator. In February 2026, he reports that the project's AI group is building an emulator for the E3SMv3 high-resolution model. Since 2024, he is also a member of NVIDIA's Physics ML for Climate Science Advisory Council and the AI2 External Review Committee.

Career

  1. Since 2007Lawrence Livermore National SecurityPostdoctoral Researcher, Staff Scientist
  2. 2015–2021Community Earth System ModelCo-chair

Education

  1. 2007University of WashingtonPhD in Atmospheric Sciences
  2. 2001Western Washington UniversityMS in Mathematics
  3. 1999Western Washington UniversityBS in Mathematics

From the biography.

  1. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Peter Caldwell. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  2. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes University of Washington. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  3. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes University of Washington. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.
  4. Of 943 people shaping AI who worked at Google, 446 work there nowIncludes University of Washington. Our estimates of where the 943 people shaping AI who worked at Google and Google DeepMind work now: 446 at Google and 452 across 278 other organizations.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. caldwell19 | people.llnl.gov people.llnl.gov. Checked 22 October 2026.
  2. SCREAM resonates in the race for the Gordon Bell Prize theregister.com. Checked 22 October 2026.
  3. High Accuracy at Low Cost: Using Machine Learning to Emulate the Department of Energy's Global Cloud-Resolving Climate Model | LDRD Annual Report ldrd-annual.llnl.gov. Checked 22 October 2026.
  4. ClimSim: A large multi-scale dataset for hybrid physics-ML climate emulation proceedings.neurips.cc. Checked 22 October 2026.
  5. Announcing the NeurIPS 2023 Paper Awards – NeurIPS Blog blog.neurips.cc. Checked 22 October 2026.
  6. LLNL-led SCREAM team clinches inaugural Gordon Bell Prize for climate modeling | Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory llnl.gov. Checked 22 October 2026.
  7. E3SM Welcomes Peter Caldwell as Principal Investigator e3sm.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  8. From the PI, February '26: A Bit More Stability, a Bit More Change e3sm.org. Checked 22 October 2026.