Andrew Williams, a postdoctoral fellow at La Jolla's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, has won the 2026 James R. Holton Award from the American Geophysical Union (AGU) for his climate dynamics research.

The award, announced by Scripps on Friday, Sept. 25, recognizes outstanding scientific research by early-career scientists within three years of earning their Ph.D. It carries a $1,000 prize, a certificate and recognition in the AGU's publication Eos, according to the AGU. The award is named for James R. Holton, a past AGU Revelle medalist and atmospheric scientist.

"I am honored to have received the James R. Holton award from the American Geophysical Union," Williams wrote on his research page in September 2026.

Williams earned his doctorate in physics from the University of Oxford in 2023. His research focuses on the tropical atmosphere and the hydrological cycle. He has described his approach as linking "emergent properties of the climate system to basic physics" using both pencil-and-paper theory and numerical models of the atmosphere and ocean.

Before arriving at Scripps, Williams held a research fellowship at Princeton University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory. He was awarded a two-year Scripps Institutional Postdoctoral Fellowship in March 2026, hosted by researchers Duncan Watson-Parris and Nick Lutsko.

Williams is also active in public science outreach. He is involved with Climate Up Close and The Weather & Climate Livestream. In June 2026, he co-organized the 2nd Weather & Climate Livestream, a marathon event featuring 140 speakers presenting their work to the public over 50 hours.

The prize is $1,000.

Williams will receive the award formally at the Atmospheric Sciences section dinner during the AGU annual meeting, scheduled for Dec. 7–11 in San Francisco. He announced in April 2026 that he will join Columbia University as an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory starting in July 2027.