Istvan Laszlo received an M.S. degree in Astronomy/Physics and a Ph.D. degree in Physics (Meteorology) from the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest, Hungary. He worked at the Institute for Atmospheric Physics of the Hungarian Meteorological Service before joining the faculty of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science at the University of Maryland at College Park, Maryland in 1984. Since April 2001 he has also been with the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Servise (NESDIS) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Istvan Laszlo's research interests include atmospheric radiation, radiative transfer, radiation budget and remote sensing of atmospheric and surface properties from space. He is a co-author of the well-known Discrete Ordinate Radiative Transfer (DISORT) code, worked on estimating the broadband top of atmosphere albedo from narrowband sensors; developed an algorithm for estimating the shortwave radiation budget, surface albedo, aerosol and cloud optical depth from satellite data. He is the aerosol and radiation budget lead scientist at NESDIS and he is currently working on remote sensing of aerosol properties and on the estimation of the shortwave radiation budget from future operational satellites.

Istvan Laszlo was an elected member of the International Radiation Commission of the International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics (IAMAP) and a member of the Scanner for Radiation Budget (ScaRaB) International Science Team. His current memberships include the Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) and NPOESS Science Teams, and the Operational Algorithm Teams for the NPOESS Aerosol Polarimeter Sensor (APS) and for the NPOESS Earth Radiation Budget (ERBS) instrument. He is also a co-chair of the Earth Radiation Budget Oversight Panel (EPOP) at NESDIS.

Istvan Laszlo has published over 30 peer-reviewed scientific articles and conference proceedings, one book chapter, five monographs, and presented over 40 scientific papers at professional meetings.