Professor William Rose (GMES) was awarded the 2002 N. L. Bowen Award at the Fall American Geophysical Union Meeting in San Francisco. The citation recognized Rose for his "significant contributions to volcanology in research, service and education over the past five years."

Rose and his students have developed techniques to investigate volcanic emissions both on the ground and from satellite data. With more than 150 papers, he has contributed to the research of volcanic emissions, ash/aerosal interaction, aircraft hazards, distal ash fallout patterns, quantitative retrievals of ash particles, detection of ice in volcanic clouds and volcanic hazards to local populations.

In 2001, Rose organized and hosted the Volcanic Clouds Workshop for 50 researchers from 11 countries at Michigan Tech. The full citation given by Lecturer Gregg Bluth (GMES) is printed in EOS, Transactions of the American Geophysical Union, Vol. 84, No. 14, 2003.