Climate Adaptation Experts Advisory Committee

In October 2010, ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability USA selected 12 renowned international experts to participate in its Climate Adaptation Experts Advisory Committee. The new committee, whose strength comes from its broad range of expertise, will provide direction and guidance to ICLEI’s Climate Resilient Communities™ Program (CRC) and will enhance the program’s ability and mission to help local governments become more resilient to climate change.

The Committee represents an unprecedented convergence of international climate adaptation experts:

• JoAnn Carmin, Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Lynne Carter, Ph.D., Southern Climate Impacts Planning Program, Louisiana State University
• Kirstin Dow, Ph.D., University of South Carolina
• Paul Kirshen, Ph.D., Battelle Memorial Institute
• Paty Romero Lankao, Ph.D., National Center for Atmospheric Research
• Susanne C. Moser, Ph.D., Susanne Moser Research and Consulting, University of California-Santa Cruz
• Craig Nicolson, Ph.D., University of Massachusetts-Amherst
• Lindene E. Patton, J.D., Zurich Financial Services
• Cynthia Rosenzweig, Ph.D., Columbia University
• Matthias Ruth, Ph.D., University System of Maryland
• David Schimel, Ph.D., National Ecological Observatory Network

The Climate Adaptation Experts Advisory Committee includes members from diverse disciplines including engineering, public policy, sociology, urban planning, medicine, and finance. Collectively, the group has authored more than 300 papers on subjects related to climate adaptation. Committee members have been involved in local climate adaptation initiatives, informed regional climate change impact reports, and been recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize for their work on the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report.

Committee Member Biographies

Lynne Carter, Ph.D., Southern Climate Impacts Planning Program, Louisiana State University

Dr. Lynne Carter is Associate Director, Southern Climate Impacts Planning Program (SCIPP) –a stakeholder-driven program focusing on serving the climate information needs of the south-central US (TX, OK, LA, MS, AR, and TN) and Associate Director for the Coastal Sustainability Studio also at LSU, an effort to bring together designers (architects and landscape architects) with engineers and coastal scientists to rethink what might work along the coast. Dr. Carter is also the Director of the Adaptation Network, a non-profit, established (2006) to assist US communities to build resilience and reduce vulnerabilities to the unavoidable impacts of climate change. She has worked on climate change issues since 1988, has organized conferences and workshops on various aspects of climate change, including around natural resource adaptations for the New England Governors/ Eastern Canadian Premiers. She was the Regional Liaison to the 19 regions for the first U.S. National Assessment. She has developed and taught semester long and short courses, delivered more than 60 public presentations on climate change, written and contributed to articles and reports on climate change for a variety of audiences, including the most recent US National Assessment - Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States (June, 2009).

Paty Romero Lankao, Ph.D., National Center for Atmospheric Research
Dr. Paty Romero-Lankao is a "multidisciplinary sociologist" by training leading the Resilient and Sustainable (RS-) Cities Theme at NCAR, US. Her work has focused on crucial intersections between urban development and the environment, including the carbon cycle, the climate system and the water cycle. In particular, she has studied key issues of (a) how particular cities attempt to meet the challenges of reducing emissions while improving their capacity to cope with environmental impacts (responses); (b) how urban development impacts the environment (drivers); and (c) what societal factors explain cities' vulnerability/resilience to heat waves, atmospheric pollution, water scarcity and pollution, among other hazards (impacts). In addition to research supported by academic awards, she has participated in global and local endeavors promoted by IPCC, UNDP and UN-HABITAT. She was co-leading author to Working Group II of the Nobel prize-winning IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report.

Susanne C. Moser, Ph.D., Susanne Moser Research and Consulting, University of California-Santa Cruz
Dr. Susanne Moser is Director and Principal Researcher of Susanne Moser Research & Consulting, in Santa Cruz, CA, a Research Associate at the University of California-Santa Cruz, and a Consulting Professor at Stanford University. In her current research and work with local, state and federal government agencies and non-governmental organizations, she focuses on adaptation to climate change, especially in urbanized coastal areas and forest-reliant communities; resilience; decision support, and effective climate change communication in support of social change. Dr. Moser is a geographer by training (Ph.D. 1997, Clark University). Previously she served as a Research Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, has worked for the Heinz Center in Washington, DC, and served as staff scientist for climate change for the Union of Concerned Scientists. Susanne Moser is co-editor with Lisa Dilling (University of Colorado-Boulder) on a major anthology on climate change communication, called Creating a Climate for Change: Communicating Climate Change and Facilitating Social Change, published in 2007 by Cambridge University Press. She contributed to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Nobel-prize winning IPCC and has been selected as a Review Editor for the IPCC Special Report on “Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation” and as a Lead Author in the Fifth Assessment. She is a fellow of the Aldo Leopold Leadership, Kavli Frontiers of Science, and Donella Meadows Leadership Programs.

JoAnn Carmin, Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dr. JoAnn Carmin is Associate Professor of Environmental Policy and Planning in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her research examines how cities and communities around the world are preparing for the impacts of climate change, with particular attention to assessment methods, ways in which the needs of the most vulnerable urban populations are being addressed, and institutional and governance provisions that facilitate mainstreaming and implementation of urban adaptation measures. Professor Carmin has published extensively on research she has conducted in the United States, Europe, Africa, and Asia, serves on multiple editorial boards, and has worked with a variety of international organizations on climate adaptation at the local level. She received BS and MS degrees in management and organizational behavior from Cornell University and a PhD in environmental policy and planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Lindene E. Patton, J.D., Zurich Financial Services
Lindene Patton is Chief Climate Product Officer for Zurich Financial Services (Zurich). She is responsible for product development and risk management related to climate change. She is a project Board Member for the World Economic Forum Low Carbon Finance Initiative and the Forest Carbon Finance Initiative. She is an advisory board member for the University of California at Santa Barbara's Bren School of Environmental Science and Management. She is a member of the ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability’s Adaptation Experts Advisory Committee. Patton also serves on numerous government and non-governmental advisory boards, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Environmental Financial Advisory Board, the Bureau of National Affairs' monthly publication, the Environmental Due Diligence Guide, and the US EPA Environmental Technology Verification Program.

Patton is an attorney licensed in California and the District of Columbia and an American Board of Industrial Hygiene Certified Industrial Hygienist. She holds a Bachelor of Science in biochemistry from the University of California, Davis, a Master of Public Health from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Juris Doctor from Santa Clara University School of Law.

Matthias Ruth, Ph.D., University System of Maryland
Dr. Matthias Ruth is Roy F. Weston Chair in Natural Economics, Founding Director of the Center for Integrative Environmental Research at the Division of Research, Director of the Environmental Policy Program at the School of Public Policy, and Founding Co-Director of the Engineering and Public Policy Program at the University of Maryland.  His research focuses on dynamic modeling of natural resource use, industrial and infrastructure systems analysis, and environmental economics and policy. His theoretical work heavily draws on concepts from engineering, economics and ecology, while his applied research utilizes methods of non-linear dynamic modeling as well as adaptive and anticipatory management. Applications of his work cover the full spectrum from local to regional, to national and global environmental challenges, as well as the investment and policy opportunities these challenges present. Professor Ruth has published 12 books and over 100 papers and book chapters in the scientific literature. He collaborates extensively with scientists and policy makers worldwide.

Professor Ruth teaches nationally and internationally courses and seminars on economic geography, microeconomics and policy analysis, ecological economics, industrial ecology and dynamic modeling at the undergraduate, graduate and Ph.D. levels, and on occasion conducts short courses for decision makers in industry and policy.

Cynthia Rosenzweig, Ph.D., Columbia University
Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig is a Senior Research Scientist at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies where she heads the Climate Impacts Group. She has organized and led large-scale interdisciplinary regional, national, and international studies of climate change impacts and adaptation. She is a co-chair of the New York City Panel on Climate Change, a body of experts convened by the mayor to advise the city on adaptation for its critical infrastructure. She has 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. She was a Coordinating Lead Author of the IPCC Working Group II Fourth Assessment Report observed changes chapter, and served on the IPCC Task Group on Data and Scenarios for Impact and Climate Assessment.

Dr. Rosenzweig's research involves the development of interdisciplinary methodologies to assess the potential impacts of and adaptations to global environmental change. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, she joins impact models with climate models to predict future outcomes of both land-based and urban systems under altered climate conditions. She is a Professor at Barnard College and a Senior Research Scientist at the Columbia Earth Institute.

David Schimel, Ph.D., National Ecological Observatory Network
Dr. David Schimel, Senior Scientist from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), was named CEO of NEON in November, 2006. Since 1992, Dr. Schimel has served as a terrestrial scientist in NCAR’s Climate and Global Dynamics Division and as Founding co-Director of the Max-Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry. He also serves as the Editor in Chief of Ecological Applications for the Ecological Society of America. His career has focused on the large-scale relationships of land management and climate change on ecosystem processes and includes expertise in managing large, complex research projects, remote sensing, data management, modeling, and the application of ecological research to science policy development.

Craig Nicolson, Ph.D., University of Massachusetts-Amherst

Dr. Craig Nicolson is an Assistant Research Professor at the University of Massachusetts where he specializes in ecological modeling; conservation biology; sustainability and climate change; and watershed systems. His research focuses on the sustainability of natural resources important to people (e.g. large mammals and indigenous communities in Alaska, Canada and Mongolia, or clean drinking water from New England forests). He am particularly interested in understanding factors that affect these ‘ecosystem services’, including climate change, oil and gas extraction, and residential development. Dr. Nicolson works with teams of scientists and stakeholders to develop holistic understandings of complex system dynamics that include wildlife populations, the habitats in which they live, and the humans who depend on them. He builds computer simulation models using rule-based approaches and/or quantitative ecological analyses, and am particularly interested in applied issues with high societal relevance that bring together scientists from both the natural and social sciences.

Kirstin Dow, Ph.D., University of South Carolina

Dr. Kirstin Dow (Ph.D., Geography, Clark University) is in the Geography Department at USC. She is a social environmental geographer focusing on understanding vulnerability and risk to environmental hazards. Dow has investigated the response of water suppliers to the Climate Prediction Center's long-lead forecasts. This work has developed a strong basis for building deeper understanding of the role of climate information and the process of introducing innovations into the decision strategies of community water systems.

Paul Kirshen, Ph.D., Battelle Memorial Institute

Dr. Paul Kirshen is currently a research leader at Battelle Memorial Laboratories where he is working to develop a climate change adaptation practice that will address the multidimensional impacts of climate change. Prior to coming to Battelle, Dr. Kirshen was a Research Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Tufts University. Dr. Kirshen holds a doctorate in Civil Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology; an M.S. in Civil Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Sc.B. in Engineering from Brown University. Dr. Kirshen’s areas of expertise include: water resources planning and management, integrated assessment, climate change, water policy analysis, and hydrology.