We sat down with Emeritus Distinguished Professor Martin Uman to discuss his 50-year career at UF and his surprising path to the field of lightning research.
Martin Uman’s Distinguished Career—An Interesting Series of Accidents

We sat down with Emeritus Distinguished Professor Martin Uman to discuss his 50-year career at UF and his surprising path to the field of lightning research.
Dr. Martin Uman recently delivered the invited conference keynote speech at the 2018 ILDC/ILMC and was also awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award for outstanding leadership and significant contributions to the lightning community.
Dr. Uman is generally acknowledged to be one of the world’s leading authorities on lightning. He presents “Research Highlights from the ICLRT at Camp Blanding” on Feb. 15 at 11:45, Larsen 310.
NPR’s RadioLab featured Dr. Martin Uman on a Dec. 20 episode, “Big Little Questions.” In the quirky and personal segment, Dr. Uman identifies a strange phenomenon as ball lightning and goes on to describe it as a “well documented mystery.”
In a dramatic, professionally-filmed commercial for the plug-in hybrid BMW 530e, ECE lightning researcher Dr. Martin Uman and his students are shown doing what they do best—using ‘triggered lightning’ to study this awesome natural phenomenon.