Thomas Giambelluca is a retired University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa professor and former director of the Water Resources Research Center (WRRC). He has published more than 160 peer-reviewed papers on topics related to the climate, hydrology, and ecohydrology of tropical environments. He has long maintained a network of field stations in Hawaiʻi and developed and maintains widely used online climate data and mapping platforms including the Rainfall Atlas of Hawai‘i.

Currently, he is leading the establishment of the Hawaiʻi Mesonet, a statewide network of advanced weather and climate monitoring stations providing real-time and archival data. He is also helping to lead the development of the Hawaiʻi Climate Data Portal, an online resource providing historical and real-time climate data, gridded climate maps, and related information. Dr. Giambelluca’s research is focused on land-atmosphere interaction under changing land cover and changing global climate. His work aims to improve understanding of Hawai‘i’s climate, how it has changed in the past and is likely to change in the future, and how the changes have and will affect hydrological processes and terrestrial ecosystems. He also studies the hydrology of tropical montane cloud forests and the effects of biological invasions, particularly by alien tree species in Hawaiʻi’s forests, on water, soils, and carbon storage.