NASA awards the EPSM to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the NASA mission over an extended period of time. Burrows was honored for his decade-long collaboration with NASA, which significantly advanced the understanding of global atmospheric composition.

Professor Burrows dedicated the award to the joint work of numerous dedicated colleagues at NASA, the University of Bremen, the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Heidelberg University, Oxford University, and Cambridge University. “Science is and always will be a collaborative endeavor,” he emphasized at the award ceremony.

John P. Burrows, born in 1954, has held the position of Professor of Ocean and Atmospheric Physics within the Faculty of Physics at the University of Bremen since 1992. He also joined NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center as a visiting scientist in 1992. In 2016, he was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society. Burrows' research focuses on the complex interactions between biological, geochemical, physical, and chemical processes in the Earth system – thus in the atmosphere, oceans, ice, and land. He analyzes how natural processes and human activities (in the Anthropocene) influence the composition and behavior of the Earth's atmosphere. Burrows has been instrumental in the development and management of major satellite missions such as GOME, SCIAMACHY, and GOME-2, which enable global observation of the Earth's atmosphere and provide important data for climate research and environmental policy.

Since its founding in 1958, NASA has revolutionized the observation of the Earth system and significantly deepened our understanding of the interactions between humans and the environment. Burrows' collaboration with NASA is an outstanding example of international research partnerships that deliver groundbreaking insights for climate protection and atmospheric research.