David Karoly, Ph.D., joined the Oklahoma University School of Meteorology faculty in January 2003 from Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, were he had been Professor of Meteorology and Head of the School of Mathematical Sciences.

Since August 1995, he had been Director of the Cooperative Research Centre for Southern Hemisphere Meteorology at Monash University until it closed in June 2000.

Karoly is active in research into the dynamics of the large-scale circulation of the atmosphere and its variability on time scales from days to decades. His specific research interests include greenhouse climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, and interannual climate variations resulting from the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. He is a member of a number of international and national committees, including the World Meteorological Organization's Expert Team on Climate Change Detection, Data and Indices; the US National Research Council's Climate Research Committee; and the Council of the American Meteorological Society. He was Coordinating Lead Author of the chapter "Detection of Climate Change and Attribution of Causes" in the scientific assessment of climate change prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2001.

Karoly received the Meisinger Award from the American Meteorological Society in 1993, with citation "for contributions to the understanding of the role of Rossby wave propagation in atmospheric teleconnections and to greenhouse climate change research." In 1998, he received the Norbert Gerbier-Mumm International Award from WMO for a joint research paper with 10 international collaborators. In 1999, he was elected a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society for outstanding contributions to the atmospheric sciences over a substantial period of years.