Franco Einaudi (Age 83)  
Of Columbia, Maryland, passed away from complications of pneumonia on December 10, 2020 with his wife by his side. Born in Turin, Italy, on October 31, 1937, he graduated from the Politecnico di Torino in 1961 and came to the United States a year later to undertake graduate work in physics at Cornell University. After receiving his PhD in 1967, he spent two years as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Toronto; he subsequently spent ten years as a fellow in the Cooperative Institute of Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) in Boulder, Colorado, followed by eight years as a Professor of Geophysical Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He never lost his connection to his home country, and in fact brought his family to Rome for a year in 1976 where he was a director of research at the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche and to Florence in 1984 for a sabbatical year as a visiting professor at the Osservatorio Astrofisico Arcetri.  In 1987, he moved to Maryland where spent 23 years at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. During his last ten years there, he was Director of the Earth Sciences Division. He retired from NASA in 2010 and spent the next five years as an unofficial ambassador for NASA, visiting high schools and colleges with high percentages of minority students to encourage them to pursue careers in earth sciences. In recognition of this work, in 2014 he was awarded the American Meteorological Society's Thomas E. Anderson Award "for consistent, career-long personal efforts to increase diversity, and for leading institutional changes that will continue to create opportunities for women and under-represented minorities." An avid soccer player, he was a lifelong fan of his beloved Torino F.C. He also spent many years coaching his sons' soccer teams, one of which toured the British Isles where the boys held their own in games in London, Liverpool, Manchester, and Edinburgh. He is survived by his wife of 54 years, Paula Ferris, his sons Renato and Gian Paolo, his daughter-in-law Roxana, and his three granddaughters, Camila, Marcela, and Emma, all of whom remember him with love and admiration. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the American Meteorological Society, of which he was president in 2006, at ametsoc.org or AMS, 45 Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02108.www.witzkefuneralhomes.com