Margaret (Peggy) LeMone received her bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1967, and her Ph. D. in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Washington in Seattle in 1972.  
Her research has focused on the fair-weather atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) and its interaction with the surface and on mesoscale convective systems, particularly those in the tropics.  Her approach has been to use carefully designed field observations, often supplemented with collaborations with experts in numerical modeling, to understand the behavior of both types of phenomena. The field efforts varied from simple one-aircraft campaigns to multi-investigator international efforts, the largest being the 1974 GATE experiment.
Results include early characterization of ABL horizontal roll vortices and the conditions favoring them, demonstrating that the vertical transport of band-normal horizontal momentum in MCS fed by quasi-dimensional convective bands is not directly related to the band-normal wind profile (i.e., the momentum flux is often countergradient), and contributing to characterizing the role of land cover in exchange of heat, moisture, and momentum between the ABL and the surface in fair weather.
She also has had extensive involvement in education and outreach, including participation in NSF NCAR’s Project LEARN, lectures on clouds or climate to teachers participating in the American Meteorological Society’s Project Atmosphere, and her role as Chief Scientist in GLOBE; revising chapters on weather and climate in a widely-used secondary-school textbook, and writing two editions of the booklet entitled The Stories Clouds Tell, and writing numerous blogs on topics related to weather and climate for GLOBE and NSF NCAR.
In addition to receiving an Editor’s Award, the Joanne Simpson Mentorship Award, and the Charles Anderson Award (for education and outreach) from the American Meteorological Society  (AMS), she is a Fellow and Honorary Member.  She is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Member Emerita of the National Academy of Engineering, and an Honorary Member of the AMS.