Roger Wakimoto is University of California Los Angeles' (UCLA) Vice Chancellor for Research & Creative Activities who oversees extramural funding that exceeded $1.7B in 2021-2022. Wakimoto is an atmospheric scientist specializing in research on mesoscale meteorology, particularly severe convective storms, tornadoes, and radar meteorology. He is a faculty member in the UCLA Department of Atmospheric and oceanic Sciences. Wakimoto has served as Director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and as Assistant Director of the National Science Foundation's Directorate for Geosciences. He has also served as President of the American Meteorological Society, Chair of the council on Research for the Association for Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), and on the Senior Research Officer Executive Committee for the Association of American Universities (AAU).