About Us
People
Atmospheric Chemistry & Climate Group
Global Carbon and Water Group
Impacts Group
Paleoclimate Group
Regional Climate Group
Turbulence
Atmospheric Chemistry and Climate Group
Susanne Bauer
Greg Faluvegi
Dorothy Koch
Olga Pechony
Drew Shindell
Nadine Unger
Apostolos Voulgarakis
Global Carbon and Water Cycle Group
Nancy Kiang
Pushker Kharecha
Michael Puma
Impacts Group
Daniel Bader
Daniel Bader is a programmer at the Center for Climate Systems Research, part of Columbia University's Earth Institute. He is responsible for processing and analyzing climate model data to make long-term climate projections that are specifically designed to be utilized within climate change adaptation strategies. In addition to this, he manages both the group's website and a blog on climate change. Prior to joining the Center for Climate Systems Research, Daniel received his M.A. in Climate and Society from Columbia University. He holds B.S. in Atmospheric Sciences from Cornell University.
Stuart Gaffin
Stuart Gaffin is an Associate Research Scientist at the Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University. Prior to joining Columbia in 2001, he was a senior scientist in the Atmosphere Program at the Environmental Defense Fund, NYC from 1989. His Ph.D. was in Atmospheric and Paleoclimate Studies from the former Earth Systems Group at New York University. His current and recent areas of research include: (i) projections of New York city regional climate impacts including temperature, precipitation, extreme events and sea level rise; (ii) the urban heat island effect and the role of urban vegetation and high-albedo surfaces as mitigation strategies; (iii) greenhouse gas emissions scenarios and their relation to regional population changes. Dr. Gaffin is also currently installing a new network of green and white rooftop monitoring and atmospheric research stations throughout the New York City area.
Joseph Gilbride
Joe Gilbride is a Project Manager at the Center for Climate Systems Research. After spending two years in the Peace Corps as a Small Enterprise Development Volunteer in Bangangte, Cameroon, Joe received an MPA from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs with concentrations in Urban Policy and Environmental Policy. Joe received his undergraduate degree in Business Administration from Boston University.
Adam Greeley
Adam Greeley is an analyst and programmer at the Columbia University Center for Climate Systems Research. He uses global and regional climate model output to study climate variability and climate change at the regional scale and to create scenarios for impact assessment models for agriculture, infrastructure, health, and water resource applications. He also works with weather generators to study impact model sensitivities to climate changes and daily to interannual variations in precipitation and temperature. Adam is a member of the Climate Scenarios Team for the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP), a transdisciplinary effort to understand climate impacts on agricultural systems and economies around the world. Additionally, he is involved with research on climate variability, climate change and impact assessment as part of the Consortium for Climate Risk in the Urban Northeast, part of the NOAA RISA program, based at Columbia University. Adam is a graduate of Columbia University's Climate and Society Master's Program and holds a B.S. in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences from Stony Brook University.
Richard Goldberg
Richard Goldberg is a computer programmer and meteorologist at the Center for Climate Systems Research / NASA GISS. His specific research interests include analyzing observed climate trends and future climate projections, climate model verification, and agricultural and drought analysis. Rich has used WATBAL analysis for current and future climate, the Palmer Drought Index, and works on modeling the impact of climate change on crops using DSSAT software. Rich received both his undergraduate and Master degree in Meteorology from the City College of New York.
Vivien Gornitz
Vivien Gornitz is a geologist and special research scientist with the Columbia University Center for Climate Systems Research and NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. She earned her Ph. D. from Columbia University in Geology/Mineralogy/Geochemistry and her B.A. from Barnard College in Chemistry. She is examining the impacts of sea level rise and extreme climate events on the metropolitan New York region. In addition, she has edited the Encyclopedia of Paleoclimatology and Ancient Environments (Earth Science Series, Springer, 2009). Previously, she has investigated the effects of human-induced hydrologic transformations on sea level, as well as recent and Holocene global sea-level change. She has also been also interested in evidence for water and past climate changes on Mars. She is currently writing a book on sea level rise.
Jonathan Hickman
Dr. Jonathan Hickman is a new Earth Institute Fellow at Columbia University. Hickman received his Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. His proposed research at the Earth Institute seeks to use complimentary field and model studies to study the potential for improved agricultural management to improve the resiliency of smallholder agricultural systems to climate change in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, and understand how those management practices may, in turn, affect emissions of greenhouse gases from these agroecosystems. Prior to arriving at the Earth Institute, Hickman was a Diversity Research Consultant for FORTUNE magazine on corporate social responsibility issues, worked as a science journalist for an Ohio National Public Radio station as a AAAS fellow, served as a senior researcher for the Council on Economic Priorities, and spent three months as a Science & Technology Policy Fellow at the National Academies.
Daniel Hillel
Radley Horton
Dr. Radley Horton is an Associate Research Scientist at the Center for Climate Systems Research. He conducts regional climate change scenario assessments for stakeholders around the globe, based on climate projections and likely impacts of those projections on a variety of systems. He is the Climate Science Lead for the Science Policy Team of the New York City Panel on Climate Change. He is also involved in climate change impact and adaptation projects in New York State, the Southeastern U.S., and Central America. Radley conducted his graduate work at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University in New York, focusing on regional impacts of climate variability and climate change as simulated by Global Climate Models. Additional research interests include polar climate, sea level rise, abrupt climate change, and adaptation to climate change.
Angela Kong
Dr. Angela Kong is a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Climate Systems Research. She is currently using biogeochemical process models to estimate the potential for soil carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas mitigation on farms in the Hudson Valley (New York). Angela has extensive experience designing and conducting field studies in both forest- and agro-ecosystems. Additional research interests include carbon and nitrogen cycling in agricultural systems, the relationship between soil microbial communities and ecosystem function, and the impacts of climate change on agroecosystem sustainability. Angela received her Ph.D. in Soils and Biogeochemistry from the University of California at Davis, under the supervision of Drs. Johan Six, Chris van Kessel, and Kate Scow. She earned a BA in Resource Management from the University of California at Berkeley.
David C. Major
Dr. David C. Major is Senior Research Scientist at the Columbia University Earth Institute’s Center for Climate Systems Research. He completed his undergraduate work at Wesleyan University and the London School of Economics, and received the Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard. Dr. Major has been a faculty member at MIT and at Clark University, a Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge, a senior planner with the New York City Water Supply System, and Program Director for Global Environmental Change at the Social Science Research Council. His principal scientific research focus at Columbia is the adaptation of urban infrastructure to global climate change. Dr. Major is the award-winning author, co-author or co-editor of fourteen books on natural resources planning, environmental management, biography and literary studies.
Shagun Mehotra
Shaugn Mehotra is a Faculty Fellow a Columbia University and Managing Director of the Climate and Cities Program at Columbia University and NASA GISS. Shagun’s research and policy advice focuses on infrastructure economics, climate and cities, and slums. The President of India recently launched his book Bankruptcy to Billions: How the Indian Railways Transformed, Oxford University Press 2009, (with Sudhir Kumar, and a forward by the Prime Minister of India). With NASA research scientists at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Shagun is crafting a global institutional structure for a programmatic approach to incorporate climate risk into city development, where he serves as the Managing Director of Climate and Cities. Previously, he was on the staff of the World Bank working on infrastructure reforms in Africa. His advice has been sought by national and local governments in Asia and Africa, as well as The Gates Foundation. He is the author of numerous publications and is a coordinating lead author for the “Climate and Cities, First UCCRN Assessment Report” a project of Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN). He has a Masters of Science from the Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand, and graduated from the School of International and Public Affairs with a Masters of International Affairs, Columbia University and is presently completing his doctoral research at Columbia University.
Jose Mendoza
Peter Neofotis
Peter Neofotis is from Lexington, Virginia, and is a 2003 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Columbia College, where he graduated with the top honor from the department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology; and completed honors fiction workshop. He also conducted research at Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona, where he grew mesquite trees under elevated CO2 and drought conditions. Peter has worked on assessing the observed changes in systems and sectors as a response to climate change. Other areas of research include the history of land use change, assessing indigenous knowledge in regard to climate change, and carbon sequestration.
Megan O'Grady
Megan Cornwell O’Grady is the Project Manager for the New York City Panelon Climate Change (NPCC) and the NYSERDA ClimAID projects. She works directly with scientists, stakeholders, and policymakers to develop feasible climate change adaptation strategies with a focus on mainstreaming adaptation into current risk management practices and thinking in all levels of decision making. Megan also focuses on strategic thinking and communication in bringing together multiple disciplines towards accomplishing a common goal. She has a MPA with a concentration in Environmental Policy from Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, and a BA in International Environmental Policy from Saint Olaf College. Prior to joining CCSR, Megan worked on education and HIV/AIDS development issues at the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Cynthia Rosenzweig
Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig is a Senior Research Scientist at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at Columbia University. She co-led the Metropolitan East Coast Regional Assessment of the U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, sponsored by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, and was the lead scientist on the New York City Department of Environmental Protection Climate Change Task Force. For the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report, she was a Coordinating Lead Author on the Assessment of Observed Changes and Responses in Natural and Managed Systems. She is a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship and is a Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science. She leads the Climate Impacts Group at the Goddard Institute of Space Studies, whose mission is to investigate the interactions of climate (both variability and change) on systems and sectors important to human well-being. Dr. Rosenzweig is currently the Co-Chair of the New York City Panel on Climate Change.
Dr. Rosenzweig received her Ph.D. in Plant, Soil, and Environmental Sciences from the University of Massachusetts in 1991. She earned an M.S. in Soils and Crops from Rutgers University and a BA in Agricultural Sciences from Cook College. She has authored or co-authored over 80 peer-reviewed scientific articles and authored or edited eight books.
Alex Ruane
Dr. Alex Ruane works at NASA GISS as a Sigma Space Partners LLC consultant, and is an adjunct Associate Research Scientist at Columbia University. Alex’s research uses a variety of climate and impacts assessment models to examine the influence of climate variability and change on a variety of sectors including agriculture, water resources, energy, infrastructure, and human health, leading to the development of adaptation strategies and decision support tools for stakeholders and policy makers. Alex also works to develop new methods to tailor climate scenarios for unique applications around the world, and investigates high-frequency variations and extreme characteristics of the water cycle. Alex is currently serving as Project Coordinator and Climate Scenarios Team Leader for the Global Crop Modeling Project (GCMP), an international historical intercomparison and future assessment of crop production and food trade, and has ongoing climate impacts projects in the Northeastern and Southeastern United States, Central America, and Bangladesh. Recent water cycle work has investigated the use of satellite-based high-resolution precipitation products and key regional balances and exchanges of atmospheric moisture across a variety of time scales.
Alex conducted his doctoral work studying the water cycle in the climate group at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and received a B.S. in atmospheric science at Cornell University. He was a fellow of the Dissertation Initiative for the Advancement of Climate Change Research (DISCCRS V) and the American Meteorological Society’s Summer Policy Colloquium (2006).
Chris Shashkin
Tiziana Susca
Tiziana Susca is an engineer and Ph.D. Candidate 2011 in Building Engineering at Polytechnic of Bari (Italy), Department of Architecture and Urban Planning. She is also a isiting student at Center for Climate Systems Research and NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Susca’s current field of research is the broadening of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) considering the urban climate and in particular the urban heat island phenomenon. More in detail, Susca is considering the contribution of the albedo in the adaptation and mitigation strategies (in particular green roofs and high-reflective roofs) on the urban climate using the LCA evaluation.
Jonathan Winter
Jonathan Winter is a NASA Postdoctoral Fellow at Goddard Institute for Space Studies. His research focuses on assessing the impacts of climate variability and climate change on agricultural productivity. Specifically, Jonathan evaluates the ability of global and regional models to capture observed temperature and precipitation extremes (heatwaves, droughts, etc.); the sensitivity of agricultural models to temperature and precipitation extremes; and the predicted changes in timing, intensity, and duration of temperature and precipitation extremes under future climate scenarios. Jonathan received his Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and completed his undergraduate studies at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, NY. His Ph.D. dissertation focused on predicting the effects of climate change on soil moisture over the American Midwest.
Paleoclimate Group
Mark Chandler
Rick Healy
Jeff Jonas
Allegra LeGrande
David Rind
Gavin Schmidt
Sonali Shukla
Regional Climate Group
Leonard Druyan
Matthew Fulakeza
Pavan Racherla
Turbulence Group
Vittorio Canuto
Ye Cheng
Mikhail Dubovikov