Affiliates

Andrews, Clinton J.

Edward J Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
Website: Website

Clinton Andrews studies how people use the built environment and the implications for energy, resilience, sustainability, and health. He builds simulation models that capture key interactions among people, technologies, and the natural environment, and tests novel methods for collecting field data in urban settings He teaches energy planning, industrial ecology, environmental planning, coastal risk, and quantitative methods. He is a Professor of Urban Planning, Director of the Rutgers Center for Green Building, and Associate Dean for Research at the Bloustein School.

Aronczyk, Melissa

Journalism & Media Studies, School of Communication & Information
Website: Website

Dr. Melissa Aronczyk’s current research critically inquires into the extent, influence, and impact of professional advocacy campaigns on debates in the climate change public sphere. The research aims to explain the extent and impact of strategic communications campaigns on political and public responses to specific U.S. policy efforts around climate change.

Aronson, Myla F.J.

Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources
Website: Website

Dr. Aronson is an urban ecologist whose interests focus on the conservation, restoration, and maintenance of biodiversity in human dominated landscapes. She studies how plants and animals respond to the environmental and social factors in cities and how these responses are influences by climate change and extreme events.

Artigas, Francisco

Department of Earth and Environmental Science, Rutgers University-Newark. Meadowlands Environmental Research Institute
Website: Website

Dr. Artigas established a network of sediment elevation tables where he has been monitoring subsidence and accretion rates of coastal wetlands in the Meadowlands of New Jersey.

Ashley, Gail M.

Earth & Planetary Sciences
Website: Website

Ashley has conducted research in Africa for over 20 years funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society. Her research in the East Africa Rift Valley has two components: (1) studies with paleoanthropologists at Olduvai Gorge and Laetoli on the water resources used by hominins millions of years ago, and (2) investigations of the modern water resources focused on rainfall, groundwater, and springs in the Lake Natron, Lake Manyara, and Lake Eyasi region. These areas have competing interests of tourism, herding (e.g. Maasi), agriculture, and hunting and gathering (Hadzabe).

Auermuller, Lisa

Rutgers, Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences (Jacques Cousteau National Estuarine Research Reserve)
Website: Website

Lisa Auermuller is the Watershed Coordinator for the Jacques Cousteau National Estuarine Research Reserve in Tuckerton, NJ. In her role at the Reserve, Lisa's duties include assessing the needs of coastal decision makers and providing relevant and timely training opportunities. These programs are designed to better inform decision makers of the research that is being conducted in the reserve, the competing uses of New Jersey's coastal zone and the impacts that decisions have on watershed quality. Most recently, Lisa's primary areas of interest have been in stormwater management, climate change and coastal community vulnerability as it relates to sea level rise. Lisa has been working with a variety of partners to develop tools and protocols to help communities understand their risks, plan for those risks and put adaptation measures into place.

Jacques Cousteau NERR Website

Baird-Zars, Bernadette

Bloustein - Urban Planning and Policy Development
Website: Website

Bernadette studies the everyday actions and implementation of land use planning tools, including zoning, construction and permitting plans and processes. Her recent work focuses on how response to climate risk, disaster and political transitions can connect to systemic shifts toward justice, through two collaborative projects around flooding in metropolitan Guadalajara and NY/NJ.

Barone, Daniel

SEBS – Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences

Dr. Daniel Barone brings nearly 15 years of leadership experience performing research activities related to coastal zone management including coastal storm vulnerability assessments, FEMA floodplain studies, sediment transport studies, beneficial use of dredged material assessments, and shore protection evaluations. Additionally, Dr. Barone has extensive experience performing geospatial data collections and analysis in marine and coastal environments. Related to this experience, Dr. Barone has managed projects pertaining to the collection of mobile & static LiDAR data of beaches, dunes, and tidal wetlands as well conducting as hydrographic surveys using single and multi-beam sounders including side-scan sonar. Daniel has the ability to utilize this field collected data for 1-D, 2-D, and 3-D modeling tasks as well as GIS-based vulnerability assessments. Dr. Barone’s extensive coastal expertise has provided him opportunities to serve as a Subject Matter Expert (SME) for several projects including being a member of the mitigation team for the New Jersey Hazard Mitigation Plan – Coastal Erosion section.

Bellany, Alastair

History
Website: Website

Alastair Bellany is an historian of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century British culture and politics now working on a new project, tentatively titled “Looking for the Little Ice Age”, that explores climate history and climate change in late medieval and early modern Europe, the relationship between historical methodology and paleoclimatic science, and the challenges and ethics of writing climate history in an age of climate crisis. His undergraduate course, “Histories of the Little Ice Age”, was launched in the Fall of 2020.

Bhattacharya, Debashish

Biochemistry and Microbiology
Website: Website

The Bhattacharya lab studies the impacts of environmental fluctuations on the biology of aquatic species, with a focus on algae and corals. Genomic tools are used to elucidate the pathways that are used by these taxa to deal with abiotic stress such as temperature and pH changes, as well as the consequences of biotic interactions (e.g., symbionts, pathogens) on their biology and adaptability. These experimental data are being used to develop coral stress monitoring tools that will be field-tested in reefs around the world.

Bielory, Leonard

Center for Environmental Prediction

Dr. Bielory, past director of the UMDNJ - Asthma and Allergy Research Center (Professor of Medicine, Pediatrics and Ophthalmology), and consistently selected as one of New Jersey and New York "Top Docs" in the New Jersey and New York metropolitan area surveys for the past 20 years, has been involved in various clinical trials and is presently focusing his interests on Climate and Allergic Airway Disease. The present EPA funded research is examining modeling the impact of allergies (pollen producing plants such as trees, weeds and grasses) over the next 50 years, studying the impact of different temperatures and CO2 concentrations on the growth of ragweed , grasses and other weeds as well as evaluating their allergenic pollen content via immunological and biological assays including electron microscopy.

Bouchard, Jack

History
Website: Website

I research and teach about premodern maritime and insular environments in the Atlantic, with an emphasis on the relation between food production, maritime commerce and colonization. A key part of my work involves understanding the relation between late medieval climate shifts, food insecurity and fisheries expansion in the north Atlantic.

Brechin, Steven R.

Sociology
Website: Website

Steve’s research explores some of the contours of a sociology of climate change – comparative/cross-national levels of public support, the required collective action by nation-states and the international community to address it, and the serious social justice issues that climate change generates. Current projects include exploring public opinion of technological solutions to climate change and sustainable energy alternatives, geoengineering, and how atmospheric scientists view these alternatives. He is also interested in critically understanding climate finance and development investments, both public and private in adaptation and mitigation, as well as the levels international cooperation required to make significant reductions in greenhouse gases. Steve is currently editing the Routledge Handbook of Climate and Society, 2nd Edition.

Broccoli, Anthony

DIRECTOR, RUTGERS CLIMATE INSTITUTE
Environmental Sciences
Website: Website

Dr. Broccoli studies changes in climate, both past and future, with a goal of better understanding the mechanisms responsible for such changes. He uses numerical models of the climate system in his research, carefully comparing their results with evidence from the climate record.

Bunzl, Martin

Philosophy
Website: Website

Martin Bunzl founded the Rutgers Initiative on Climate and Society in 2007 under the name Rutgers Initiative on Climate and Social Policy. For four years, his leadership brought together scholars at Rutgers and beyond with a focus on social science research of climate change, with an emphasis on policy implications. Bunzl has published in journals such as Science, Climatic Change, and Philosophy of Social Science on a variety of topics including the ethical considerations of geoengineering, and the tragedy of the commons. Currently, he is writing a book that lies at the intersection of climate change, ethics and philosophy of science. He also continues to work on problems of risk assessment and decision making about geoengineering

Bushek, David

Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory
Website: Website

Dr. Bushek's research focuses on shellfisheries, shellfish pathology and ecology and shellfish aquaculture. Aparticularly interest is shellfish pathogen transmission dynamics and how that is affected by climate change andthe movement of shellfish for restoration, enhancement and cultivation. Recently, he's worked on the role ofshellfish in shoreline protection and the development of 'living shorelines' that use shellfish as structural andecologically functional components in shoreline protection and resiliency.

Campo, Matt

Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
Website: Website

Matt’s work at Rutgers focuses on understanding tools and methods to assess the sustainability and resilience of built environments and transportation systems. His research supports coastal communities’ efforts to enhance their planning capabilities and risk management strategies to adapt to climate change.

Cedeño Laurent, José Guillermo

Department of Environmental and Occupational Health and Justice, Rutgers School of Public Health
Website: Website

Dr. Cedeño Laurent’s research focuses on the effects of climate change related environmental exposures (e.g. extreme heat, wildfires, flooding) on human health. He is primarily interested in providing climate adaptation and solutions in the built environment.

Chang, Alexandra

Arts, Culture and Media; Clement A. Price Institute for Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience
Website: Website

Alexandra Chang teaches classes on EcoArt at RU-N and also heads up the monthly EcoArt Salons at the Paul Robeson Galleries at Express Newark. She is also a part of the campus-wide Eco Working Group. She organizes the Climate Working Group, a creative gathering of more than 50 members that bridges Science, Humanities and Arts researchers, scholars, artists, practitioners, and institutions for short and long term collaborations considering climate, data, policy, power, and the history of globalization. She also serves as Vice Chair on the Communications Committee of the Environmental and Climate Network of the Alliance of American Museums.

Chen, Catherine

Department of Medicine – Division of General Internal Medicine

Dr. Catherine Chen is an academic hospitalist at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School where she is also the faculty lead for RWJMS's involvement in the Global Consortium on Climate Health Education. She has been working through NJ ACP and the Clinicians for Climate Action NJ to bring healthcare systems towards environmentally conscious and sustainable care delivery through quality improvement and education.

Chen, Chi

Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources
Website: Website

Dr. Chi Chen conducts research on the broad area of monitoring and modeling vegetation and ecosystem dynamics. His work combines remote sensing, ground-based observations, and earth system models to better comprehend the ways in which the terrestrial biosphere interacts with global changes. A key focus is to examine the effects of natural and human-caused drivers of ecosystem dynamics and their climate feedbacks.

Recent Publications:

1. Chen, C.*, Riley, W. J., Prentice, I. C., Keenan, T. F*. (2022). CO 2 fertilization of terrestrial photosynthesis inferred from site to global scales. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(10), e2115627119, https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2115627119 [PDF][Supp]

2. Chen, C.*, Li, D., Keenan, T. F. (2021). Enhanced surface urban heat islands due to divergent urban-rural greening trends, Environmental Research Letters. 16(12), p.124071. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac36f8 [PDF][Supp1][Supp2]

3. Chen, C.*, Li, D.*, Li, Y., Piao, S., Wang, X., Huang, M., Gentine, P., Nemani, R. R., & Myneni, R.B. (2020). Biophysical impacts of Earth greening largely controlled by aerodynamic resistance, Science Advances, 6(47), eabb1981. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abb1981 [PDF] [Supp]

4. Chen, C.*, Wang, L., Myneni, R. B., & Li, D*. (2020). Attribution of land-use/land-cover change induced surface temperature anomaly: How accurate is the first-order Taylor series expansion? Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, 125, e2020JG005787. https://doi.org/10.1029/2020JG005787 [PDF] [Supp]

5. Chen, C.*, Park, T., Wang, X., Piao, S., Xu, B., Chaturvedi, R. K., Fuchs, R., Brovkin, V., Ciais, P., Fensholt, R., Tømmervik, H., Bala, G., Zhu, Z., Nemani, R. R. & Myneni, R. B. (2019). China and India lead in greening of the world through land-use management. Nature Sustainability, 2,122–129. http://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0220-7 [PDF] [Supp]

6. Piao, S.*, Wang, X., Park, T., Chen, C., Lian, X., He, Y., Bjerke, J. W., Chen, A., Ciais, P., Tømmervik, H., Nemani, R. R. & Myneni, R. B. (2019). Characteristics, drivers and feedbacks of global greening. Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, 359(1763), 716 14. http://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-019-0001-x [PDF] [Supp]

7. Park, T.*, Chen, C., Macias-Fauria, M., Tømmervik, H., Choi, S., Winkler, A., Bhatt, U. S., Walker, D. A., Piao, S., Brovkin, V., Nemani, R. R. & Myneni, R. B. (2019). Changes in timing of seasonal peak photosynthetic activity in northern ecosystems. Global Change Biology, 259(4), 660–14. http://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14638 [PDF] [Supp]

8. Chen, C.*, Knyazikhin, Y., Park, T., Yan, K., Lyapustin, A., Wang, Y., Yang, B. & Myneni, R. B. (2017). Prototyping of LAI and FPAR Algorithm with MODIS MultiAngle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction (MAIAC) data. Remote Sensing, 9(4), 370. http://doi.org/10.3390/rs9040370 [PDF] [Supp]

Clark, George - Affiliate Emeritus

Human Ecology
Website: Website

Dr. Clark received his undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences from Rutgers in 1971, his master’s degree in Sociology from the University of Maine in 1975, and his Ph.D. in Sociology from Rutgers in 1983, specializing in Community and Environment. He came to what was then the Department of Human Ecology and Social Sciences at Cook College as a Research Assistant in January of 1976, then became a Teaching Assistant, and has been teaching for the Department for more than thirty years. Dr. Clark retired in 2019.

Cuite, Cara

Food Policy Institute, Human Ecology
Website: Website

Cara Cuite is an Assistant Extension Specialist in the Department of Human Ecology at Rutgers University. Dr. Cuite is a health psychologist who studies food insecurity in college students and the wider community, as well as risk communication and public perceptions of food-related issues, including food safety and genetically engineered foods. She also studies communication about weather-related emergencies and interventions to reduce household food, energy, and water use. Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the United States Department of Agriculture, and New Jersey Sea Grant, among others. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology from Rutgers University and a B.S. in Psychology and Modern Languages from Union College.

Curchitser, Enrique

Department of Environmental Sciences
Website: Website

Enrique Curchitser has been taking a multi-disciplinary approach to address questions relating to climate change and its impacts on regional scales. Specifically, he has worked on the intersection of climate and oceanic ecosystems as well as developing novel downscaling techniques and working with coupled socio-economic and climate models.

Decker, Steven

Department of Environmental Sciences
Website: Website

Steve Decker, an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences, is the Undergraduate Program Director for Meteorology. His areas of expertise include weather analysis and forecasting and numerical weather prediction. Dr. Decker teaches numerous courses in those areas, including a summer field course involving a trip to the Plains in search of severe weather. He also serves as academic adviser for transfer students majoring in meteorology. Dr. Decker's research interests include the evolution, predictability, and societal impact of both synoptic-scale and mesoscale midlatitude weather systems, and how these aspects may change under future climate scenarios. He also uses numerical models in support of air quality monitoring projects at Rutgers.

Doerfel, Marya

Department of Communication
Website: Website

Marya Doerfel's research focuses on community resilience with a particular interest in disruptions that impact inter-organizational relationships and their broader community networks. She considers the way social network relationships among organizations in their local communities impact and are impacted by changes in their environment, other organizations, their constituents, and their relational contexts.

Downs, Shauna

Department of Health Systems and Policy, Rutgers School of Public Health
Website: Website

Dr. Downs is a public health nutritionist who conducts research examining the links among climate, food systems and nutrition. Her work examines the way in which climate affects diets and nutrition as well as the role of sustainable diets to mitigate climate change.

Elnakib, Sara

Department of Family & Community Health Sciences
Website: Website

Dr. Sara Elnakib is an Educator/Assistant Professor of the Department of Family & Community Health Sciences at Rutgers Cooperative Extension and Research Associate for the New Jersey Healthy Kids Initiative (NJHKI). Her research focuses on the use of policy, systems, and environmental approaches to promote child health equity and environmental stewardship, primarily in school and community settings. Sara has received research
funding from the EPA, USDA, NJDEP and Horizon Foundation to research the intersection of nutrition literacy, environmental education, and healthy eating. Her dissertation focused on food waste in the school setting and how behavioral economics can be leveraged to reduce food waste. She completed her doctoral degree in Social and Behavioral Health Science at Rutgers School of Public Health. Sara is also a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN), has a Master’s of Public Health degree in Health Education and Behavioral Sciences from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, and completed her undergraduate degree in Nutritional Sciences at Rutgers University.

Errickson, William

Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources
Website: Website

Bill Errickson serves as the Agriculture and Natural Resources Agent for Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Monmouth County with a focus on nursery production, turfgrass, and agricultural innovation. His work focuses on sustainable soil management and cultural practices in the green industry that can help growers become more resilient to the impacts of climate change.

Evans, John

Dance – Mason gross School of the Arts
Website: Website

Professor Evans is the principal investigator on a multidisciplinary grant to create a new dance film, Breaking the Surface, that explores climate change, more specifically sea level rise and its effects on the New Jersey’s coastal environment and beyond. Professor Evans and his colleague Ani Javian, will be working in collaboration with faculty from Marine and Coastal Sciences, Environmental and Biological Sciences, the Jacques Cousteau National Marine Estuarine Reserve, and Landscape Architecture.

Falkowski, Paul

Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences
Website: Website

Paul Falkowski is a Board of Governors Professor of Geological Sciences at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences and in the Department of Geological Sciences. His research interests include biophysics, photosynthesis, photobiology, molecular evolution, signal transduction, apoptosis, biogeochemical cycles and symbiosis. He is widely-recognized for his contributions in the fields of biogeochemistry (specifically carbon and nitrogen cycling), climate change, and his co-authorship of a book on aquatic photosynthesis. Dr. Falkowski is an advisor to the National Science Foundation and NASA and serves on the Mars Architecture Mission team, the Earth System Science and Applications advisory Committee, is the co-chair of the IGBP Carbon Cycle Working Group, and a member of the Carbon Cycle Science Steering Committee. In 2007 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and in 2008 became a Fellow at the American Academy of Microbiology.

Falzon, Danielle

Sociology
Website: Website

Danielle’s work examines power and inequality in decision-making about climate change. Her current research focuses in two (connected) sites - the UN climate negotiations and the field of climate adaptation work in Bangladesh – where she studies the relational and structural power differentials between actors and how they work for or against climate justice.

Feldman, Lauren

Journalism and Media Studies
Website: Website

Dr. Feldman is an Associate Professor in the Journalism & Media Studies Department at Rutgers University. Her research examines media coverage of climate change and its influence on public opinion and engagement. Her recent work includes studies on the media and communication factors that affect opinion polarization around climate change, the role of efficacy messages and emotions in driving climate policy support and political activism, and how entertainment and comedy can be used to broaden public engagement with climate change. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, among other funders, and has been published in more than two dozen peer-reviewed articles. Feldman earned her PhD from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania in 2008. Prior to joining the Rutgers faculty, she was an Assistant Professor in the School of Communication at American University.

Ferraro, Carrie

Program Director, Rutgers Science Explorer
Website: Website

Carrie Ferraro's interests are in education and effective practices for communicating research more broadly. She is an Assistant Professor of Professional Practice with the Math and Science Learning Center and the Director of the Rutgers Science Explorer. The Rutgers Science Explorer is a mobile laboratory that brings the excitement of Rutgers research to K-12 students, engaging them in hands-on activities with graduate students.

Findley, Patricia

Graduate School of Social Work
Website: Website

Dr. Findley's work with respect to climate change has taken a clinical and research direction. With grant funding, she has been able to lead a group of graduate social work students in providing mental health services to survivors of Super Storm Sandy. Her research is now focused on the assessment of those survivors to address physical and mental health concerns that remain. She is mostly interested in the vulnerable populations, including the elderly, children, and individuals with physical, cognitive, and sensory disabilities.

Fischer, Frank - Affiliate Emeritus

Frank Fischer is distinguished professor of politics and global affairs. He has taught environmental politics and policy, U.S. politics, foreign policy, on the Newark campus and public policy and planning at the E. J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy on the New Brunswick campus. He is also a senior faculty fellow at the University of Kassel in Germany, where he has taught global public policy, comparative and global environmental politics, and U.S. foreign policy in the M.A. program on Globalisierung und Politik. He is currently a senior research scholar at the Albrecht-Daniel-Thaer Institute at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany, where he focuses on climate change and food policy. He has also received the Harold Lasswell and Aaron Wildavsky Awards for contributions to the field of public policy and served as editor of Critical Policy Studies journal.

The author of numerous books and articles, he is currently working on a book focused on participatory governance in sustainable development and another related to climate denialism.

Fonseca, Dina

Entomology Department
Website: Website

Dina Fonseca is a Professor of Entomology. One of Dr. Fonseca's primary research interests are invasive mosquitoes, which transmit viruses such as those that result in Zika and dengue fevers. Her research has shown that mosquito populations can differ significantly across short distances and over time, changing epidemiological landscapes and risk estimates. Her lab has also shown that mosquitoes move primarily associated with people (in boats, trucks and cars) and that association selects for sub-populations more likely to bite us. Dr. Fonseca works closely with county and state mosquito control programs and the public to develop effective and efficient strategies for mosquito and invasive species control that are sustainable and minimize impacts to the environment. More recently, Dr. Fonseca has started developing predictive tools to forecast changes in salt marsh mosquito populations due to sea-level rise and strategies used to mitigate its impact on coastal communities. Predictive model and enhanced surveillance will allow mosquito control programs in coastal counties to develop proactive strategies and mitigate nuisance, disease and environmental impacts.

Fox, Jeanne M.

Edward J. Bloustein School
Website: Website

Jeanne Fox co-teaches the Bloustein School graduate course Energy Policy &Sustainability. She is also an Adjunct Faculty member (Energy and Environment)at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. For 8 years she was NJ Board of Public Utilities President creating the Office of Clean Energy and having New Jersey become a leader in both solar and offshore wind. She also served as EPA Region II Administrator and NJDEP Commissioner. Jeanne also had the privilege of serving on the RU President’s Climate Task Force Workgroup #7 (Climate Positive Economic Development). And, as Rutgers Trustee and now as a Trustee Emerita, Jeanne has continually raised, since 1990, various sustainability areas which our university should address.

Georgopoulos, Panos

Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Rutgers Biomedical and Health & Sciences
Website: Website

The laboratory of Prof. Georgopoulos (ccl.rutgers.edu) studies Environmental and Public Health issues, focusing on two complementary research areas:

Multiscale computational modeling of interacting environmental and biological systems.
Enviroinformatics, bioinformatics, and socioinformatics applications, using predictive data analytics to understand human exposures to pollutants and associated health outcomes.

Gerbush, Mathieu

Assistant State Climatologist – Office of the New Jersey State Climatologist
Website: Website

Mathieu Gerbush is the Assistant State Climatologist in the Office of the NJ State Climatologist (ONJSC), where he assists in the operation of several weather- and climate-monitoring programs, such as the 65-station Rutgers New Jersey Weather Network and the NJ chapter of the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow Network. Mathieu is the primary point of contact for those seeking NJ weather and climate data, such as climate change researchers, government agencies, businesses, and private citizens of NJ.

Giménez, Daniel

Environmental Sciences
Website: Website

Dr. Giménez's research is focused on investigating the effects of shifts in climate on the distribution of carbon in soils and its impact in soil porosity and hydraulic properties. He uses a variety of field and laboratory tools in these investigations, including Time Domain Reflectrometry (TDR), X-Ray Computed Tomography (CT), and instrumentation to automatically measure infiltration and soil water retention properties.

Giri, Subhasis

Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources
Website: Website

Dr. Giri is a Biosystems Engineer with a background in Hydrology and Water Quality. His research interest focuses on interaction of anthropogenic, hydrology, climatic systems, and ecology on both natural and managed systems. He employs both field study/monitoring as well as computer modeling to provide decision centric information to solve real world problems. Recently, he has developed NJ Watershed Adapt to enhance flooding resiliency as well as improve eutrophication in the coastal communities in New Jersey. He likes multidisciplinary approaches to address questions in the complex environment that crosses traditional academic boundaries of land and water systems.

Gong, Jie

Civil and Environmental Engineering
Website: Website

Dr. Gong studies the resilience of infrastructure and building systems to intensified natural and anthropogenic disturbances by direct impacts such as hurricane, tsunami, and cumulative and secondary impacts such as climate change and sea level rise. Among other things, one of his particular research focuses is on studying the convergence approaches in remote sensing, infrastructure analysis, artificial intelligence, and system modeling and simulation for resilient coastal communities. His group is often deployed in the field to conduct forensic studies of extreme weather events with the eventual goal of turning disaster data into knowledge to inform resilient rebuild needs.

Grabosky, Jason

Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources
Website: Website

Dr. Grabosky’s research often centers on trees in urban landscapes which can be observed as exaggerationsand precursors to the environmental changes brought by climate change within a broader context

Guo, Qizhong (George)

Civil and Environmental Engineering
Website: Website

Qizhong (George) Guo is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. An engineer, Professor Guo investigates green and grey infrastructure to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Guran, Serpil

Rutgers EcoComplex
Website: Website

Dr. Serpil Guran is the Director of Rutgers EcoComplex “Clean Energy Innovaon Center”. She also manages the EcoIgnite- Clean Technology Proof of Concept Center and Accelerator Program and WindIgnite –Offshore Wind Supply Chain Accelerator Program. She also serves as an appointed member on the New Jersey Governor’s “Food Waste Recycling Commercializaon Council” .

Her responsibilies include management of the EcoComplex operaons, programs, business incubator and facilies, as well as providing vision and leadership in establishing the EcoComplex as a center for the commercializaon of environmental and clean energy technologies. She also teaches at Rutgers University’s Plant Biology Program and Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

Dr. Guran is trained on thermochemical conversion (pyrolysis and gasificaon) of biomass and waste materials for producon of fuels and chemicals. She obtained her Ph.D. degree in Fuel and Energy Engineering program at The University of Leeds/United Kingdom. She specializes in research, development and assessment of sustainable biofuel and waste recycling technologies, and life cycle analysis of clean energy systems and alternave fuel producon systems. Currently, she is working on Food-Energy-Water Nexus and Waste synergy by promong integraon of waste materials into Circular Carbon Economy in achieving Environmental Sustainability including Climate Change migaon, Economic Sustainability and Social Jusce.

Häggblom, Max

Biochemistry and Microbiology, School of Environmental and Biological Sciences
Website: Website

Microorganisms are the foundations of ecosystems and key drivers of the biology and chemistry in soils. Research of the Haggblom lab aims at understanding how soil microorganisms respond to climate change and how this soil microbiota drives turnover of soil organic matter in Artic tundra soils.

Hallman, William

Chair of the Department of Human Ecology
Human Ecology - Professor
Website: Website

Dr. Hallman is an experimental psychologist with expertise in public perceptions of risk and risk communication.

Harris, Jack L

Department of Human Ecology, Climate & Society.

Dr. Harris focuses on building out the course and program offerings in sustainability studies for Rutgers students at SEBS. He is the author of Hyperlocal Organizing: Collaborating for Recovery over Time which analyzes the organizing processes that underly long-term recovery from disaster and is centered around an extended case study of recovery in coastal New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy. Jack’s overall research focuses on the social and organizational infrastructures that underly economic and social well-being at the community and regional levels (UN SDGs 3,8,9,11,10,13, and 16). He is currently exploring institutional drivers of local sustainability processes in Scotland.

Herb, Jeanne

Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
Website: Website

Jeanne Herb is Associate Director of the Environmental Analysis and Communications Group at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. While her area of practice is environmental policy, in general, her work includes a particular focus on state and local level policy targeted at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and preparing for impacts of climate change. Prior to joining the Bloustein School, Jeanne served more than 20 years in senior positions in state government and the NGO community focused on state, local and federal environmental policy innovation.

Hochman, Gal

Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Rutgers Energy Institute
Website: Website

Gal Hochman received his Ph.D. in Economics at Columbia University in 2004. His work focuses on biotechnology, energy, the environment, and on trade agreements. While working on alternatives to fossil fuels, Gal’s work showed the distributional implications of a global climate agreement. Gal’s work assessed the economic implications from allocating polluting rights to fossil extracting and fossil consuming countries. Greenhouse gas intensity of biofuels (and also non-conventional fossil fuels like coal to liquids and oil sands) cannot be determined just by measuring carbon content of fuel, because significant amounts of emissions occur away from the site of production or consumption. This necessitates carbon emissions accounting that is ex-ante analysis and which accounts for these off-site emissions. Gal’s work identified several of these off-site carbon-emitting sources and quantified their impact. Gal’s research on energy shows the importance of modeling OPEC as a cartel-of-nations. His work also quantifies the importance of inventories in the 2007 and 2008 food commodity price spike. Gal has attended and presented papers at numerous conferences, including the ASSA, the ACS, the CEA, the Econometric Society, the EEA, and the IAEE.

Hoefer, Wolfram

Department of Landscape Architecture
Website: Website

Dr. Wolfram Höfer is an Associate Professor at the Rutgers of Department of Landscape Architecture and serves as Director of the Rutgers Center for Urban Environmental Sustainability (CUES).

Dr. Hoefer developed numerous community outreach projects in the field of adaptive re-use of brownfields, urban resiliency, and infrastructure. His research and teaching focus is the cultural interpretation of brownfields as potential elements of the public realm and how the challenges of climate change impact spatial and environmental planning. Further he is investigating the different cultural interpretations of landscapes by the general public in North America and Europe and how they influence public participation processes as well as professional approaches towards planning and design solutions for adaptive re-use of brownfields.

Huang, Bingru

Plant Biology
Website: Website

Bingru Huang is a distinguished professor in the Department of Plant Biology, Rutgers University and director of the graduate program in plant biology. Her research program focuses on understanding mechanisms of plant tolerance to abiotic stress and developing effective management strategies to improve stress tolerance in various turfgrass species.

Hughes, David McDermott

Anthropology, Center for African Studies
Website: Website

Dr. Hughes is interested in social responsibility for carbon emissions and climate change. In this connection, he is currently writing an ethnography of high emitters in the petro-state of Trinidad and Tobago. The work is provisionally entitled “The magic of hydrocarbons: oil, climate change, and the question of complicity.”

Jackson, Rebecca

Department of Marine & Coastal Sciences
Website: Website

Dr. Rebecca Jackson is a physical oceanographer who studies the polar oceans and their interaction with the cryosphere. Her work investigates submarine melting of glaciers in Greenland and Alaska, and the effect of glacial meltwater on ocean circulation.

Jha, Shantenu

Computer Engineering
Website: Website

Shantenu is a Professor of Computer Engineering at Rutgers University and the Chair of the Department (Center) for Data Driven Discovery at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Shantenu’s research interests are at the intersection of high-performance distributed computing and computational & data-driven science. He is the PI of RADICAL Lab and the lead investigator of RADICAL-Cybertools project which are a suite of middleware building blocks used to support large-scale science and engineering applications. He is proud to play a part in the upcoming revolution at the interface of computing and health-science — global health and “personalized” medicine. He collaborates extensively with scientists from multiple domains – including but not limited to Molecular Sciences, Earth Sciences and High-Energy Physics.

Justice, Benjamin

Educational Theory, Policy & Administration (GSE)
Website: Website

Benjamin Justice is Professor of Education and (by courtesy) History. He currently serves as President of the History of Education Society and is Director of the Education PhD program at the Rutgers GSE. Dr. Justice studies the historical interaction between states and their constituent peoples through formal and informal mechanisms of civic education. His major bodies of work focus on religious and racial diversity, as well as multiple policy domains, such as education, criminal justice, and armed forces.

Kaplan, Marjorie

Associate Director - Rutgers Climate Institute

Dr. Kaplan leads the Rutgers Climate Institute program office and manages the full portfolio of Rutgers Climate Institute activities in consultation with the Co-Directors. She also co-facilitates the New Jersey Climate Change Alliance and is Co-director of the New Jersey Climate Change Resource Center. She participates and helps develop applied research and analyses related to natural carbon sinks, climate and health/ health equity, climate resiliency and climate and agriculture. Dr. Kaplan's almost 40-year career has included more than 20 years in government and 10 years in the private sector. She was the first Director of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection's Office of Climate and Energy where she oversaw regulatory programs under the Global Warming Response Act, the Global Warming Solutions Fund Law and regional initiatives to address climate change within various sectors including the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Dr. Kaplan holds a B.S. in Natural Resources from Cornell University and a Masters and Doctorate of Public Health from Columbia University.

Kelemen, Daniel

Keller, John P

Rutgers, Mason Gross School of the Arts & Theater Department
Website: Website

John P. Keller is a theater maker and socially engaged artist with 20 years of experience in arts education and production. He is committed to creating projects that use the arts as a process of transformation across a range of advocacy areas including environmental sustainability, violence prevention, socio-economic justice and equitable community development.

Kennish, Michael J.

Marine and Coastal Sciences
Website: Website

Michael J. Kennish is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers University, where he has conducted innovative studies of coastal, estuarine, and marine environments for more than 30 years. The primary focus of his research has been investigations of anthropogenic effects on these environments. He is serving as an expert reviewer of the IPCC 6th Assessment Report.

Kipen, Howard

Occupational and Environmental Health
Website: Website

Howard Kipen is generally interested in mechanism of air pollution health effects. He will soon receive a 3 year grant from USEPA to investigate the effects of climate change on indoor ozone chemistry and consequent biomarkers of health hazards. He is interested in clinical studies of how climate change affects air pollution and thus associated health effects, and in measures for ameliorating such effects. Modeling for the upcoming study will be done by Panos Georgopoulos and air pollution measurements by Qingyu Meng.

Kociolek, Brielle

Center for Mathematics, Science, and Computer Education
Website: Website

Dr. Kociolek currently is working at CMSCE at Rutgers as the Senior iSTEM Coordinator. Through her job she has been allowed to collaborate, develop and create climate change curriculum which has enabled her multiple opportunities to work with K-12 teachers and
students. Some of these opportunities included professional developments, camps, workshops, and co-teaching lessons. With New Jersey's focus on climate change she has been able to help with educating K-12 teachers to be better prepared to take on these new standards.

Kohut, Josh

Rutgers, Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences
Website: Website

Physical processes in the coastal ocean are highly variable in space and time and play a critical role in coupled biological and chemical processes. My research interest is to apply ocean observing technologies that now sample across important time and space scales to better understand the physical ocean that structures marine ecosystems.

Kopp, Robert

Earth and Planetary Sciences, Bloustein School
Website: Website

Robert Kopp is a climate scientist who serves at Rutgers University as a professor in the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences and co-director of the University Office of Climate Action.

He directs the Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub (MACH), a National Science Foundation-funded, 12-university consortium led by Rutgers University. MACH works within the Philadelphia-New York City-New Jersey region to both 1) facilitate flexible, equitable, and robust multidecadal planning to manage climate risk, and 2) advance the scientific understanding of how interactions among coastal climate hazards, changing landforms, and human decisions shape climate risk.

Kuetting, Gabriela

Political Science (Rutgers Newark)
Website: Website

Gabriela Kuetting’s research examines the connections between coloniality, global environmental governance and environmental justice. She seeks to contribute to these debates drawing on critical political ecology understood as a broad, interdisciplinary set of discourses and practices that goes to the roots of structural challenges.

Labban, Mazen

Geography
Website: Website

Mazen Labban is a human-environment geographer interested in critical social theory, political economy, industrial microbiology and biotechnology, extraction (metals, oil & gas), energy, and waste. Labban is currently working on two books: rethinking the inter-relationships between urbanization, mining, and wasting under modern capitalism; exploring the multiple intersections of various microbes with the circuits of capital.

Lafay, Elaine

History Department
Website: Website

Elaine LaFay is a historian of climate and the body. Her research explores the relationships between climate science, medicine, and American imperialism in the nineteenth-century U.S. South.

Lathrop, Richard

In my research I have attempted to integrate insights of landscape ecology and geography with the application of geo-spatial technology to improve our understanding of the structure and function of coupled human-environmental systems at broader landscape to regional scales and then translate that understanding into effective and appropriate techniques to improve 'on-the-ground' natural resource management and land use planning.

Laumbach, Robert

Department of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Website: Website

Dr. Laumbach's research and education interests focus on how multiple environmental stressors, including air pollution and climate change, interact to have cumulative effects on human health and wellbeing.

Leichenko, Robin

ASSOCIATE DEAN OF SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES AND FORMER AND FOUNDING CO-DIRECTOR OF THE RUTGERS CLIMATE INSTITUTE
Geography
Website: Website
Research Website

Robin Leichenko is Professor of Geography and Associate Dean of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Rutgers University. Robin is former and founding Co-Director of the Rutgers Climate Institute. Her current research explores the economic and equity impacts of climate change with a focus on the northeastern United States. Leichenko is currently serving as co-chair for the New York City Panel on Climate Change, co-chair of the Society and Economy Sector of the New York State Climate Assessment, and co-PI of the NOAA RISA Consortium for Climate Risk in the Urban Northeast. Leichenko has authored or co-authored three books and more than 100 journal articles, book chapters, and scientific reports. Her book, Environmental Change and Globalization: Double Exposures (2008, Oxford University Press, with Karen O’Brien), won the Meridian Book Award for Outstanding Scholarly Contribution from the American Association of Geographers. Her latest book, Climate and Society: Transforming the Future (with Karen O’Brien) was published by Polity Press in 2019. Leichenko earned a Ph.D. in Geography (1997) and an M.A. in Economics (1995) from Penn State University. She also holds an M.A. in Geography (1991) from the University of Colorado-Boulder, and a B.S. in English (1989) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Lennon, Thomas

Rutgers Film Center

Thomas Lennon, as Director of Rutgers’ Documentary Film Lab, has NSF support to make several documentary short films on human decision-making related to rising sea levels.

Lintner, Benjamin

Environmental Sciences
Website: Website

Benjamin Lintner is an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences.His research focuses on tropical climate dynamics, in particular understanding the processes controlling the spatiotemporal distribution of rainfall. On-going projects in Dr. Lintner’s research group include analyzing relationships among large-scale circulation, moisture, and rainfall in the South Pacific across multiple temporal scales; diagnosing the mechanistic pathways through which the land surface and atmosphere interact; isolating controls on atmospheric moisture vertical structure; and developing and applying novel methodologies for analyzing rainfall and other climate variables. Currently, Dr. Lintner serves as the Director of the Rutgers Graduate Program in Atmospheric Sciences as well as a university delegate to the Organization for Tropical Studies, a nonprofit consortium of universities dedicated to strengthening education and research in the study of the tropics.

Lockwood, Julie

Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources
Website: Website

Julie Lockwood’s research explores the interaction between biodiversity and climate change. She has published on the role of climate change on the number and distribution of invasive species, and how to conduct conservation planning for coastal birds in the context of sea level rise. Her most recent research considers the influence of warming temperatures and green energy installations on migratory birds.

Lutz, Richard

Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences
Website: Website

Dr. Richard A. Lutz studies the ecology of deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Since the first biological expedition to these unique ecosystems in 1979, Dr. Lutz has spent countless hours on the bottom exploring thermal vents throughout the world's oceans in a variety of deep-diving submersibles.

Observations made during the course of Dr. Lutz's ongoing studies in this unique "natural deep-sea laboratory" are dramatically altering our views of the rates at which many biological and geological processes are occurring on the face of the planet.

Lyons, Kevin

Rutgers Business School – Supply Chain Management Department
Website: Website

Dr. Lyons conducts supply chain research which integrates social, economic, and environmental/climate impacts. His research prioritizes and balances how organizations can develop and measure high performance supply chain systems which have social and economic responsible criteria as well as climate neutral aspects.

Maher, Neil

Federated History Department at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Rutgers University at Newark
Website: Website

Professor Maher is an environmental and political historian of the 20th Century United States. His current research and teaching examines environmental inequality and environmental justice activism in post-1945 America. Maher has developed a searchable digital archive that showcases his students’ research on environmental inequality in the postwar United States, and most recently published essays and op-eds in the New York Times and the Washington Post. During the 2022-2023 academic year, he will be a resident Fellow at the New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers in Manhattan, where he will be researching and writing an environmental justice history of Newark, New Jersey.

Marcone, Jorge

Spanish and Portuguese, and Comparative Literature
Website: Website

Marcone teaches courses on the theories informing the environmental humanities; and on the interrelationship between Latin America’s literature, film, and art, on the one hand, and environmental activism and socio-ecological resilience, on the other. His current lines of research focus on Amazonia, and on transdisciplinary research on water governance carried out at the SARAS Institute in Maldonado, Uruguay. http://saras-institute.org/

Marxen, Lucas

NJAES Office of Research Analytics
Website: Website

Lucas Marxen leads the development of geographic information systems and data informatics systems that combine computers science and data visualization techniques into platforms that bring research about climate change and its impacts to a broad set of stakeholders. His research focuses on the use of such data informatics platforms as boundary objects, bridging the gap between the research and public policy communities.

Maslo, Brooke

Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources
Website: Website

My research centers on understanding the evolutionary, behavioral and physiological mechanisms underpinning the ability of populations to persist in the face of significant environmental change. My work contributes to our understanding of basic science; however, I strongly believe in the value of effectively translating scientific research into practical, evidence-based directives to equip stakeholders with appropriate decision-support tools to advance conservation and sustainability objectives.

Mazurek, Monica

Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering (Academic Home), Center for Advanced Transportation and Infrastructure (Research Center Affiliation), Environment & Energy Program, Center for Advanced Infrastructure & Transportation (CAIT)
Website: Website

Monica A. Mazurek is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and is a member of the Center for Advanced Infrastructure & Transportation (CAIT). Her research has focused on carbonaceous aerosols, their sources, and impacts on local, regional, and global air quality.

McCay, Bonnie - Affiliate Emerita

Adaptation of social and ecological systems to environmental and climate change, with a focus on marine fisheries and institutions for science and management.

McDermott, Melanie

Human Ecology
Website: Website

Melanie McDermott has conducted applied research on the relationships among community, environment, and social difference in various contexts, among them: the role of local governments in advancing environmental (in)justice and sustainability, the political ecology of natural resource management, with an emphasis on community forestry; and coastal resilience and the social and environmental determinants of health in New Jersey. With degrees in interdisciplinary social science (B.A., Harvard; Ph.D., UC Berkeley) and forestry (M.Sc., Oxford), she has three decades of research experience in the U.S., Southeast Asia, Southern Africa, and the Caribbean.

McDonnell, Janice

Department of 4-H Youth Development
Website: Website

Dr. Janice McDonnell is the STEM Agent in the Department of Youth Development at Rutgers University, where she focuses on developing and implementing high quality STEM programs for youth. As part of Rutgers Cooperative Extension, the Department of Youth Development focuses on providing experiences where young people learn by doing. Youth complete hands-on projects in areas like health, science, and citizenship in a positive environment, receiving guidance from adult mentors encouraging them to take proactive leadership roles.

With a background in marine sciences, McDonnell has served as a marine science educator in the Department of Marine & Coastal Sciences for twenty-five years. For ten years (2002-2012), she was the lead Investigator for the National Science Foundation’s Centers for Ocean Science Education Excellence Networked Ocean World (COSEE- NOW), where the goal was to help scientists and educators work together to better communicate with others about the ocean through a data science lens. She is one of the co-authors of the Broader Impacts Wizard, developed as part of COSEE NOW and reimagined with a new NSF Center called ARIS (Advancing Research Impacts in Society). She supports researchers in developing Broader Impact statements for their NSF proposals.

McElwee, Pam

Human Ecology
Website: Website

Dr. McElwee's interests are in global environmental problems, with particular expertise in biodiversity conservation, climate change, and forest restoration. She is most interested in how individuals and households respond to changes in the physical environment, and how their responses are shaped by external policies and other constraints. Most of her research combines household-level analysis of environmental decision-making and resource use with an examination of global institutional practices and norms that influence environmental policy. She is currently PI on an NSF-funded study of the use of ecosystem services concepts in environmental policy formation in Southeast Asia, including the governance of nature-based solutions.

Much of her current work also involves organizing and writing in teams for science-policy assessments. She has served as a lead author for the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Global Assessment (2019), lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Climate Change and Land (2019), and the first joint IPCC/IPBES report on Biodiversity and Climate Change (2021). She will be co-chairing the upcoming IPBES “nexus” assessment on the interlinkages between biodiversity, water, food, climate and health. She is also currently Chapter Lead for Ecosystems, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services for the ongoing Fifth US National Climate Assessment, to be released in 2023.

She was trained as an environmental scientist and anthropologist at Yale University (Ph.D in Forestry & Environmental Studies and Anthropology), Oxford University (M.Sc in Forestry) and the University of Kansas (B.A in Political Science). Before becoming an academic, she worked at the US Senate for Al Gore, in the Clinton White House on environmental policy, and at the US EPA.

Miles, Travis

Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences
Website: Website

Dr. Miles is a physical oceanographer with the Rutgers University Center for Ocean Observing Leadership (RUCOOL) that specializes in using networks of underwater robots, remote sensing, and numerical models to understand the coastal ocean environment. He is particularly focused on improving hurricane intensity and impact forecasts for landfalling storms in vulnerable communities.

Miller, James R.

Marine and Coastal Sciences
Website: Website

Jim Miller uses a combination of observations and climate model simulations to understand how water will both impact and be impacted by future climate change, with a major focus on the analysis of feedbacks in the climate system. Of particular interest is predicting future changes in water resources, river flow and temperature, permafrost, Arctic climate, and climate in mountainous regions.

Miller, Kenneth G.

Earth and Planetary Sciences
Research Website

My research focuses on reconstructing the history of sea-level change on all time scales from 100+ million year to the last few thousand years. I am interested in projections of sea level rise in this century and its effects particularly on New Jersey.

Miller, Mark

Environmental Sciences
Website: Website

Dr. Miller's research involves the interaction of clouds and atmospheric gases with incoming solar radiation and outgoing thermal infrared radiation. His research group utilizes a combination of in-situ and remote sensor measurements define atmospheric structure in under-sampled regions around the planet. These data are used to evaluate and improve the representation of clouds and radiation throughput in regional weather forecast models, regional climate models, and global climate models.

Mitchell, Ken - Affiliate Emeritus

Geography
Website: Website

Mizrach, Bruce

Economics
Website: Website

Bruce Mizrach is a professor in the Department of Economics at Rutgers University. He has held appointments at Boston College, the Wharton School, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and NYU Stern. Mizrach is the founder and editor of Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics and Econometrics, which is devoted to using nonlinear analysis to understand economic and financial markets. His most recent work is on the market microstructure of electronic limit order markets in bonds, equities and commodity markets including petroleum and carbon.

Morin, Xenia

Plant Biology
Website: Website

Dr. Morin, currently the undergraduate program director for the agriculture and food systems program, explores how the world feeds itself, and explores how we will produce enough food in the face of climate change and population growth, while simultaneously reducing agriculture and food’s carbon footprint. Through her teaching, she seeks to inspire students to develop and to share solutions to the challenges facing agriculture and food systems.

Munroe, Daphne

Marine and Coastal Sciences
Website: Website

I study population connectivity in marine shellfish. These populations are often the key components of important ecological processes (sediment stabilization or water filtration), and are also the basis of many coastal fisheries and aquaculture systems. My research examines how changes in water temperature and ocean circulation are and will continue to change the connectivity and population dynamics in these populations, ultimately playing a role in the stability of these populations as human food resources.

Murphy, Stephanie

Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences/New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station/Cooperative Extension/Soil Testing Laboratory
Website: Website

Dr. Murphy’s interests include climate as a soil-forming factor and soils’ effects on climate. Soil quality is affected by climatic factors/processes, and degradation of soil by wind and water erosion, loss of organic matter (carbon) from soil, compaction, reduction in infiltration and/or water holding capacity of soil are all linked to climate as well resiliency of soils and landscapes. Restoring soil quality to degraded soils and concomitantly sequestering carbon are a constant theme in Dr. Murphy’s teaching and outreach efforts.

Neitzke Adamo, Lauren

Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and the Rutgers University Geology Museum
Website: Website

Dr. Neitzke Adamo’s research focuses on examining the sedimentological, paleontological and geochemical changes in sediments to understanding the surface and deep-water changes in the North Atlantic Ocean over the past 150 ka. Through her work with the Rutgers University Geology Museum, she is also involved in geoscience education research and examining and implementing new technologies and methodologies to create accessible museum spaces and content. Dr. Neitzke Adamo’s works with undergraduate and graduate students to explore geodetic remote sensing techniques through the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs, or drones) and photogrammetry.

Nikolopoulos, Efthymios

Civil and Environmental Engineering
Website: Website

Dr. Nikolopoulos expertise is in the modeling and monitoring of hydrometeorological and hydrological extremes. His main research goal is to improve the understanding of climate change effects on hydrological extremes and develop methods to mitigate their environmental and socioeconomic impacts.

Noland, Robert

Director - Voorhees Transportation Center (BSPPP)
Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
Website: Website

Robert B. Noland is Distinguished Professor at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy and serves as the Director of the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center. He received his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania in Energy Management and Environmental Policy. Prior to joining Rutgers University he was Reader in Transport and Environmental Policy at Imperial College London, a Policy Analyst at the US Environmental Protection Agency and also conducted post-doctoral research in the Economics Department at the University of California at Irvine. The focus of Dr. Noland’s research is the impacts of transportation planning and policy on both economic and environmental outcomes.

Ntarlagiannis, Dimitrios

Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University - Newark
Website: Website

Dr. Ntarlagiannis is an Associate Research Professor with the department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Rutgers University – Newark. He is a near surface geophysicist with expertise in electrical methods. His research interests extent from environmental and geological applications of near surface geophysical methods, to climate change impact in today’s societies.

Nucci, Mary

Human Ecology
Website: Website

Dr. Mary Nucci is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Ecology at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Her research interests include public perception of issues in science and science communication in film, media and museums. She has an A.B. in Biological Sciences from Mount Holyoke College; and an M.S. in Zoology and a Ph.D. in Media Studies, both from Rutgers University. Her doctoral research focused on the role of visual format, rhetoric and culture in science communication. Prior to her tenure at Rutgers, she worked at Enzon Inc., serving in a variety of positions from immunologist to Associate Director of Scientific Information; was Partner in New Paradigm Consulting Inc. specializing in science writing, project management, teaching, and curriculum development; and was Thematic Director of Health at Liberty Science Center.

O'Brassill-Kulfan, Kristin

History
Website: Website

Kristin O’Brassill-Kulfan is a public historian and scholar of early American social history, particularly interested in archival methodologies and the history of poverty and homelessness. She is leading the local chapter of an international collaborative research project with the Humanities Action Lab on the historical underpinnings of environmental justice issues and the social impacts of climate change in central and southern New Jersey.

O'Neill, Karen

Department of Human Ecology
Website: Website

Karen M. O’Neill is a sociologist studying coastal climate adaptation and other policies on land and water. This includes understanding who wins and who loses under different policies. Topics include biodiversity protections in the urban plans of large cities around the world, local slow growth and pro-growth movements and policies in small towns, river flood control, coastal storm vulnerability and hazard reduction, and projects to move people and infrastructure from the coast.

Oberg, Angela

Human Ecology
Website: Website

Dr. Oberg is an urban environmental planner whose work aims to make cities more livable and sustainable. Using the concepts of urban metabolism, Angie’s work investigates how the everyday lives of urban residents shape, and are shaped by, urban political ecologies. In particular, she studies the urban political ecology of sewage and how climate risk is creating new biophysical, social, and infrastructural vulnerabilities.

Ordway, Scott

Music
Website: Website

Scott Ordway is a composer and multimedia artist whose work uses music, text, video, and photography to explore the relationship between landscape, climate, and emotion. His work has been called “exquisite” (The New York Times) and “a marvel” (The Philadelphia Inquirer) and is regularly presented in venues throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia.

Ouzad, Amine

Department of Finance and Economics
Website: Website

Amine Ouazad’s work focuses on the impact of climate risk on cities, household finance, and financial assets such as mortgages, Mortgage-Backed Securities, and derivatives.

Paul, Mark

Edward J. Bloustein School of Public Policy
Website: Website

Mark Paul is a political economist focused on the economics of deep decarbonization. His research on public policy looks at the intersection between climate policy and distributional outcomes. His book, Freedom is Not Enough: Economic Rights in an Unequal World is forthcoming with University of Chicago Press.

Payne, Cymie

Human Ecology, Rutgers School of Law
Website: Website

Cymie R. Payne studies global governance of the environment and natural resources and the consequent evolution of international law, with a focus on climate change, protection of the environment in relation to armed conflict, and conservation of ocean resources.

Phung, Hieu

Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
Website: Website

Hieu Phung is an environmental historian who investigates the impacts of local culture and statecraft on the preindustrial environment, especially on water and climate. Her research focuses on the history of Vietnam and Southeast Asia during the transition from the Medieval Climate Anomaly (c. 800/950–1250/1300) to the Little Ice Age (c. 1300–1850).

Popper, Frank

Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
Website: Website

Frank J. Popper teaches land-use planning at Rutgers' Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy and, with his wife Deborah Popper, a geographer retired from the City University of New York, at Princeton's Environmental Studies Program. Since 1987 the Poppers have explored the US and Canadian Great Plains' land-use future, which they describe in an environmental vision they call the Buffalo Commons. Their idea has provoked a continuing national debate over the region's prospects, and they believe it is likely to win out in the end, especially as climate change takes hold. The Poppers have done parallel studies of other declining regions, such as the Corn Belt directly east of the Great Plains, and declining large cities, such as Detroit and Cleveland. Frank Popper has also done separate studies of state land-use planning, federal public lands, and Locally Unwanted Land Uses (LULUs).

Pray, Carl

Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics
Website: Website

Purcell, Wendy M

Department of Environmental and Occupational Health and Justice; School of Public Health; Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences
Website: Website

Professor Purcell’s work focuses on the role of higher education in transforming lives and the pursuit of social equity, the knowledge economy, and sustainable development. It explores sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as fuel for societal transformation and the adaptive change necessary to achieve a just transition and the creation of a world that leaves no one behind.

Radbel, Jared

Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Website: Website

Jared Radbel, MD is a pulmonologist whose research interests include elucidating inflammatory mechanisms underlying associations between air pollution exposure and critical illness development. Of particular concern is exposure to ozone, which is a risk factor for the development of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and a growing problem due to climate change.

Ramenzoni, Victoria

Human Ecology
Research Website

Dr. Ramenzoni is an environmental anthropologist specialized in human behavioral ecology, coastal communities, and marine and coastal policies. Through a mixed methods approach, she studies how socio-ecological factors shape human adaptation, the impact of environmental uncertainty on decisions about resource use, and household nutrition in coastal environments. She has also worked on ecosystem services and indicator development.

Reinfelder, Ying Fan

Earth and Planetary Sciences
Website: Website

Dr. Ying Fan Reinfelder is a hydrologist with a research interest in global water cycle and its role in the climate system through physical and biogeochemical pathways, particularly through water-plant relations. Her tools include compilation and synthesis of field observations made by others (such as groundwater depth, plant rooting depth) to discover patterns and mechanisms, and to build these mechanisms into global climate and ecosystem dynamics models. By doing so, she hopes to better translate the field observations made at isolated sites to mechanistic cause-effect relations that matter globally and thus shape global environmental change. Her interests of time scales range from seasonal to geological including Cenozoic glaciations and Paleozoic land plant evolutionary that profoundly changed the world.

Rennermalm, Asa

Geography
Website: Website

Dr. Rennermalm studies hydrology and climate in the Arctic region with emphasis on Greenland ice sheet hydrology. Her work involves modeling, satellite data analysis, and fieldwork. She has participated several field expeditions to the Arctic, including Alaska and Greenland.

Restrepo-Mieth, Andrea

Edward J Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
Website: Website

Dr. Restrepo-Mieth studies how municipalities with limited administrative capacity and low civil society mobilization address growing needs to plan for and implement climate change adaptation. Her current research uses water, sanitation, and solid waste management in Galápagos, Ecuador, as lenses to analyze what issues get prioritized in the local climate change adaptation agenda, who mobilizes for what and their motivations, and how municipal, provincial and non-state actors interact (or fail to) in pursuit of climate change adaptation.

Rhiney, Kevon

Geography
Website: Website

Kevon Rhiney (he/him/his) is an Associate Professor of Human-Environment Geography in the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University – New Brunswick. He has held research positions at the University of Oxford and the University of the West Indies. His primary research examines the complex conditions under which rural agrarian landscapes change, and the socio-material implications these changes pose for smallholder livelihoods. More recent research has started to explore the biopolitical and justice implications of post-hurricane reconstruction efforts across the Caribbean.

Robinson, David

State Climatologist - Office of the New Jersey State Climatologist
Geography
Website: Website

Dr. David A. Robinson is a climatologist and geographer with research interests in the earth’s cryosphere, particularly hemispheric and regional snow cover dynamics and interactions of snow cover with other climate elements. He maintains the longest (55year) satellite-derived database of snow cover extent over Northern Hemisphere lands and was the first to identify the progressively early loss of spring snow cover in middle and high latitudes in the late 20th century.

Robock, Alan

Environmental Sciences
Website: Website

Dr. Alan Robock is a Distinguished Professor of climate science in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers University. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1970 with a B.A. in Meteorology, and from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with an S.M. in 1974 and Ph.D. in 1977, both in Meteorology. Before graduate school, he served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Philippines. He was a professor at the University of Maryland, 1977-1997, and the State Climatologist of Maryland, 1991-1997, before coming to Rutgers in 1998. Prof. Robock has published more than 490 articles on his research in the area of climate change, including more than 280 peer-reviewed papers.

Robson, Mark Gregory

Plant Biology and Pathology
Website: Website

Dr. Robson's research and teaching focus on environmental public health with particular attention to agriculture and rural communities. Part of this interest includes the distribution of crops grown and the pest pressure from changing climate, primarily insects and disease. Dr. Robson also works in the area of vector control and the changes in climate that alter the distribution of various pest species that can cause vector borne disease.

Rodgers, Mark

RBS – Supply Chain Management
Website: Website

Dr. Rodgers is an expert in designing power systems planning and optimization models that determine the optimal investment strategies and operational decisions to expand the electric power grid sustainably and economically.

Rosenthal, Yair

Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Website: Website

The overarching motivation for my research is to understand mechanisms of climate change on various time scales through the study of paleo-archives, primarily from ocean sediments.

Rouff, Ashaki

Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University Newark
Website: Website

Dr. Rouff evaluates sustainably sourced sorbents, such as biochar and wastewater derived materials, for removal of dissolved contaminants and capture of atmospheric gases. She applies thermoanalytical techniques to characterize and determine the stability of organic carbon in soils.

Rowe, Amy

Agriculture and Natural Resources

Amy Rowe is a county agent for Rutgers Cooperative Extension in Essex and Passaic Counties. Her background is in water chemistry with a concentration on the fate and transport of contaminants. Amy has worked in stormwater management for more than 10 years and her outreach programming has focused on green infrastructure in urban environments and green jobs training classes. She is also a coordinator for the Rutgers Environmental Stewards program. Dr. Rowe also works with the USDA NE Climate Hub on integrating climate impacts with Ag Extension. Amy is currently working on reducing food waste as part of climate change mitigation with a focus on New Jersey schools.

Rudel, Thomas

Human Ecology
Website: Website

I am currently working on two, somewhat separate issues regarding the mitigation of climate change. One involves an NSF funded project on regrowth in tropical pastures in Ecuador (a biocomplexity in the environment grant) with implications for REDD+. The other is a book manuscript on the political sociology of environmental reforms (e.g. reductions in emissions).

Saba, Grace

Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences
Website: Website

Dr. Grace Saba’s research interests are in the fields of coastal marine organismal ecology and physiology, with emphasis on how organisms interact with their environment and other organisms, how physiological processes impact biogeochemistry, and how climate change (i.e., ocean acidification and warming) impacts these processes.

Salzman, Hal

Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development
Website: Website

Santiago Ramos, Danielle

Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences
Website: Website

Dr. Santiago Ramos investigates the processes controlling the chemistry of the oceans and how they affect the global carbon cycle and Earth’s climate over geologic timescales.

Schäfer, Karina

Biological Sciences, Rutgers University - Newark
Website: Website
Research Website

Karina VR Schäfer is an Ecosystem Ecologist at Rutgers University—Newark, NJ, USA. She received her MSc from the University of Bayreuth, Germany and her PhD from Duke University, USA. Her research focuses on greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems with particular emphasis on global climate change. Moreover, the question of how disturbance is changing structure and function of forests and wetlands and how this influences carbon and water cycling on these ecosystem level are the primary focus of her research.

Schneider, Laura

Geography
Research Website

Dr. Schneider is a biogeographer specialized in land change science. Her research focuses on understanding the dynamics of land transformations, the drivers of land change, and how land change affects socio-ecological systems. Her research emerges from a strong background in tropical biology, ecology, remote sensing and human-environment geography, and it examines theoretical and methodological ways of linking biophysical, socioeconomic and remote sensing and GIS data in understanding landscape dynamics.

Schofield, Oscar

Marine Sciences
Website: Website

Professor Schofield studies the marine ecology of the ocean and these systems will be altered with a changing climate. His work is focused throughout the global ocean but has his major research focused on Antarctica and along the New Jersey coast. His research develops and uses novel new technologies to better measure the ocean utilizing underwater robots, satellites to novel imaging systems. His work is tightly coupled to an extensive outreach program spanning K-gray learning communities. Some of his research was featured in the documentary Antarctic Ice Edge (https://beyondtheice.rutgers.edu/).

Schoolman, Ethan D.

Department of Human Ecology
Website: Website

Dr. Schoolman looks broadly at the environmental and social implications of efforts to strengthen alternative food systems, including local and regional production/consumption of food and organic farming. He is also interested in the clean energy potential of agriculture and farmland, and is a member of the Rutgers Agrivoltaics Program. Reforming food systems has enormous potential for helping to address the drivers of climate change; at the same time, the changing climate will have profound consequences for agriculture.

Schwander, Stephan

Director of the Center for Global Public Health, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, School of Public Health
Website: Website

Climate change is predicted to have a major impact on air quality as a result of changed weather patterns, droughts, wild fires, and storms. Dr. Schwander studies the connection between air pollution exposure and the human immune system with a focus on low and middle income countries.

Seidel, Dena K.

Rutgers Departments of Marine Science and Plant Biology
Website: Website

Dena Seidel is an interdisciplinary social scientist with expertise in sustainable food system research and science communication who combines Anthropology, science storytelling and ethnographic documentary filmmaking to facilitate food system development plans and STEM learning research. Seidel has a Master’s Degree in Cultural Anthropology with years of experience learning from, and working with, Pacific Island indigenous leaders who live at the forefront of climate change. Seidel is the honorary Ambassador-at-Large for Research and Academic Partnerships for Pohnpei State in the Federated States of Micronesia. Trained at the Green Climate Fund structured dialogues in Micronesia and Korea, Seidel is currently a Co-PI and the project coordinator for the Green Climate Fund Climate Resiliency Among Farming Households in the Federated States of Micronesia Baseline Survey where Seidel facilitates the project’s data gathering operations between four Micronesia state governments, local NGOs and Rutgers university food system scientists. Seidel is also an award-winning science filmmaker and the director/producer of several original feature films about Rutgers climate research for wide reaching audiences. The creator/designer of Rutgers first film production courses and programs, Seidel was the first university professor to produce research-based feature length science films for national broadcast while including undergraduates in the creative process. Twelve science and research films that Seidel produced with her undergraduate students have reached broad audiences through a variety of venues including PBS, Netflix, PIVOT TV and iTunes and have demonstrated the effectiveness of university produced science films to appeal to, and reach, the larger public

Senick, Jennifer

Rutgers Center for Green Building, Edward J. Bloustein School of Urban Planning and Policy Development, Rutgers University
Website: Website

Dr. Senick is an expert in energy policy, sustainable development, healthy communities, environmental behavior and green building. She regularly leads inter-disciplinary research on applied topics of climate change exploring the intersectionality of building performance, building occupant behavior and climate. Recent projects have focused on: 1) building and community affordances, heat waves and vulnerable populations; 2) coastal flooding, real estate industry knowledge and market impacts; and 3) detection of health and safety building defects, occupant behavior and indoor air quality. Senick additionally leads the center’s evaluation and market research activities for the NJ Board of Public Utilities and works with a variety of organizations serving low-income communities to translate and deliver research findings as K-12 STEM workshops.

Shendell, Derek

School of Public Health, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Co-Director of the Center for School and Community-Based Research and Education, Director of NJ Safe Schools Program and Co-leader of the NJ OSHA Alliance
Website: Website

With respect to climate change science, Dr. Shendell's interests relate to climate change's impacts on and human adaptation regarding indoor air and environmental quality in homes, office buildings, schools--including portable versus traditional/site-built school classrooms and fitness facilities as well as various public and private outdoor locations used by recreational endurance athletes and racquet sports players.

Shope, James

Environmental Sciences

James is an environmental scientist and geoscientist whose past work has evaluated flooding and erosion hazards due to climate change and sea-level rise. His work combines numerical modeling of climate and hydrodynamic processes, large-scale data analyses, and interdisciplinary coordination to provide practical information to guide climate change resiliency planning. James’s research addresses a wide range of climate change impacts and adaptation strategies relevant to the Mid-Atlantic US, particularly New Jersey. Specifically, he is interested in how climate change may impact ecosystem services and ensuing socioeconomic ramifications. He also focuses on how climate change may affect public health, municipal planning, and agricultural production

Shwom, Rachael

Human Ecology, Sociology, Bloustein School of Planning
Website: Website

Rachael Shwom is an assistant professor in the Human Ecology department who specializes in climate and society. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology with a specialization in Environmental Science and Policy at Michigan State University in 2008. Her dissertation research focused on how different governmental, business, and environmental organizations sought to influence U.S. policies on appliance energy efficiency over the past three decades.

Sigman, Hilary

Economics
Website: Website

Hilary Sigman is a Professor of Economics at Rutgers University and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). She holds a B.A. from Yale, an M.Phil. from Cambridge University (U.K.), and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She conducts research on the empirical effects of environmental policy. Her recent climate-related research examines climate adaptation in US hazardous waste policy.

Sikes, Liz

Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences
Website: Website

Liz's research interests are principally in the field of paleoceanography - the study of long-term (thousands of years) climate variability expressed in the ocean. The unifying theme in her research is the interconnection of carbon cycling, ocean circulation, and global climate with a strong focus on the Southern Ocean's influence in glacial and interglacial regimes.

Simon, Dr Jim

Department of Plant Biology
Website: Website
Research Website

Simon conducts research on developing holistic agricultural food ecosystems and strengthening food security in relationship to climate change. Using an approach that embeds environmental, cultural and economic sustainability, Simon’s focuses both on breeding plants for improved resistance to biotic and abiotic stress and in the utilization of indigenous genetic resources. More recently, Simon’s research has identified and developed new natural products as effective mosquito and tick repellents.

Slater, Lee

Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University Newark
Website: Website

Investigations of methane cycling in wetlands using multi-scale geophysical methods. Measurement and modeling of free phase methane gas dynamics and releases to the atmosphere from northern peatlands and coastal wetlands.

St. Martin, Kevin

Geography, Community Economies Collective, Cooperative Institute for the North Atlantic Region, COMPASS (Communication Partnership for Science and the Sea)
Website: Website

Kevin St. Martin is an Economic Geographer with a specialization in the application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). He is interested in critical analyses of economic and resource management discourse. His current research focuses on the implementation and practice of new forms of marine governance such as ecosystems-based management and Marine Spatial Planning. He is particularly interested in their implications for both sustainable resource management and community-based economic development. His interest in GIS has led to an examination of the use of GIS in participatory scientific and resource management initiatives.

Tchen, Jack (John Kuo Wei)

Clement A. Price Institute, Rutgers - Newark
Website: Website

Jack (John Kuo Wei) Tchen is the Clement A. Price Professor of Public History and Humanities and the Director of the Price Institute. Extending his past work with disenfranchised communities (documenting and archiving the past, present, and future matters important to them), Professor Tchen is focused on two concerns – supporting research and documentation that tells the more accurate history of settler colonialism and enslavement’s extractivist impacts on Indigenous Lands and disenfranchised people in the Newark-NYC Metro Region, and grappling with the ongoing local, regional, and global legacies of climate change, environmental racism, and ecological injustice.

Turshen, Meredeth

Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
Website: Website

Meredeth Turshen is a Professor Emeritus in the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. Her research interests include international health and she specializes in public health policy. She has written four books, The Political Ecology of Disease in Tanzania (1984), The Politics of Public Health (1989), andPrivatizing Health Services in Africa (1999), all published by Rutgers University Press, and Women’s Health Movements: A Global Force for Change (2007) published by Palgrave Macmillan; she has edited six other books, Women and Health in Africa (Africa World Press, 1991), Women’s Lives and Public Policy: The International Experience(Greenwood, 1993), What Women Do in Wartime: Gender and Conflict in Africa (Zed Books, 1998), which was translated into French (L’Harmattan, 2001), African Women’s Health (Africa World Press, 2000) , The Aftermath: Women in Postconflict Transformation (Zed Books, 2002), and African Women: A political economy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). She has served on the boards of the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars, the Committee for Health in Southern Africa, and the Review of African Political Economy, and is on the editorial board of the Journal of Public Health Policy.

Vachon, Todd

Department of Labor Studies and Employment Relations, Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations
Website: Website

Todd’s research occurs at the intersection of economy and environment. His publications have looked at the political and economic contributors to GHG emissions across countries, the role of political and labor market institutions in helping or hindering societies achieve emissions reductions, and efforts by various social movement organizations to achieve social, economic and environmental justice. In his role as a labor educator with Rutgers LEARN, Todd organizes and convenes stakeholder meetings with diverse civil society groups including labor unions, climate justice organization, and faith-based groups, to seek consensus around various climate protection measures and to help build broad-based support for their implementation.

Van Abs, Daniel

Human Ecology
Website: Website

Dr. Van Abs is a Professor of Professional Practice in Water, Society and Environment with the Department of Human Ecology at Rutgers-SEBS. He is involved with research and practice development regarding management of water resources, water utilities (water supply, municipal wastewater, stormwater), and watersheds. His primary focus is on understanding and improving government, utility and non-governmental capacity for addressing major water management challenges in a setting of limited resources, limited public knowledge, and significant challenges including climate change. He is a licensed NJ professional planner and a Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners.

Walker, Jennifer

Earth and Planetary Sciences
Website: Website

Dr. Walker’s research focuses on climate and sea-level change on short-term instrumental to long-term geological timescales to improve understanding of past sea level in order to better predict sea-level rise into the future. She specializes in reconstructions of sea-level through time using biological and geological indicators, which when combined with statistical modeling techniques, are used to quantify rates of sea-level change and examine spatial and temporal variability of driving processes.

Wang, Ruo-Qian

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Website: Website

Dr. Wang’s research group is aimed at combining environmental fluid mechanics and informatics. The major topics include 1) AI-based earth observation, 2) the coastal resilience and interaction among hydrodynamics, infrastructure systems (e.g. coastal defense systems, transportation network),, 3) environmental impacts of renewable energy (offshore wind and hydrokinetic energy), and 4) micro/nano fluid dynamics for innovative design of environmental devices.

Weingart, John

Eagleton Institute of Politics
Website: Website

John Weingart has been associate director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics since 2000. He directs the Institute’s Center on the American Governor; the Eagleton Fellowship Program; and the Arthur J. Holland Ethics in Government Program. His interests include the consideration of, and communication about, risk in public policy; narrowing the gaps between science and government; public participation in government; and, more generally, the vitality of the infrastructure of government.

Weis, Judith S.

Department of Biological Sciences
Website: Website

Judith Weis is an estuarine ecologist, who is especially interested in responses of estuarine animals to stresses, such as pollution, invasive species, and parasites. Climate change, (both increased temperatures and acidification) in addition to causing its own effects, will probably exacerbate effects of these other stresses.

Weschler, Dr. Charles J.

Environmental and Population Health Bio-Sciences
Website: Website

Climate change has the potential to significantly affect human exposure to pollutants in indoor environments. This includes: i) increased use of air conditioning in both residential and commercial buildings, reducing air exchange rates and increasing concentrations of pollutants with indoor sources; ii) increased emission rates of organics from furnishings and building materials due to elevated temperatures; iii) increased occurrence of indoor ozone-initiated chemistry due to rising outdoor ozone concentrations; iv) increased chemistry due to increased reaction rates at higher temperatures; and v) more time spent indoors due to less hospitable outdoor conditions. It is these and other connections with human exposure to pollutants that form the nexus between Weschler’s research and climate change.

Westendorf, Michael

Department of Animal Science
Website: Website

Michael Westendorf is Professor and Extension Specialist in the Department of Animal Sciences at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Dr. Westendorf provides leadership for Rutgers Cooperative Extension nutrient and animal waste management programs and carries out applied research programs in 1) the use of food waste residuals as animal feed and 2) the management of animal wastes to reduce effects upon the environment.

Whelan, Mary

Environmental Sciences
Website: Website

Whelan specializes in making difficult atmospheric chemical measurements that clarify land-atmosphere interactions under climate change.

Winfree, Rachael

Ecology, Evolution & Natural Resources
Website: Website

Rachael Winfree is a Professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Natural Resources at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. The goal of her work is to better understand the causes and consequences of biodiversity, particularly in real-world settings and at large spatial scales. Current projects in her research group include (1) the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem services, (2) biodiversity measurement, (3) plant-pollinator networks, and (4) pollinator conservation and restoration. Her work has been funded primarily by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and has been published in leading scientific journals including Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Ecology Letters, and Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. From 2015-2019 she was one of approximately 170 scientists worldwide (and one of approximately 20 women) on the list of highly cited researchers in the field of environment / ecology. Rachael is a Fellow of the Ecological Society of America and serves on the board of directors of the Xerces Society, which has the largest pollinator conservation effort of any nonprofit. She received her Ph.D. in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University in 2001 and her B.A. from Dartmouth College in 1990.

Wirtenberg, Jeana

Management & Global Business, Rutgers Business School
Website: Website

Jeana Wirtenberg, Ph.D. helps companies and organizations make sustainability a mainstream, routine business practice. She is an expert on the leadership, organizational dynamics, and psychology required to make that happen.

Wright, James

Earth and Planetary Sciences
Website: Website

As a paleoceanographer, Jim Wright studies the ocean’s role in past climate changes using stable isotope reconstructions. Of particular interest are the effects of freshwater on North Atlantic deep-water circulation over the past 20,000 years and the influence of tectonic changes over the past 35 million years. Jim also works on reconstructing past sea level using corals and past pCO₂ variations using stable isotopes in paleosols.

Xiaomeng, Jin

Department of Environmental Sciences
Website: Website

Dr. Jin is an assistant professor in atmospheric chemistry at the Department of Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University. Her research aims to understand the impacts of emission controls and changing climate on the source and chemical formation of major air pollutants, and the implications for public health and policymaking.

Zemeckis, Douglas

Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources
Website: Website

Dr. Zemeckis serves as the Marine Extension Agent for Ocean, Atlantic, and Monmouth Counties through Rutgers Cooperative Extension. In this capacity, his work involves educational programming and applied research that helps to meet the needs of clientele in fisheries, aquaculture, and coastal resource management, including addressing climate change related issues that are impacting coastal resources and communities.

Zhang, Ning

Plant Biology
Website: Website

Dr. Ning Zhang is a fungal biologist and has been studying various groups of Fungi, the second largest kingdom of eukaryotic life. Her research areas include fungal biodiversity, systematics and their functional role in the ecosystem. She recently also is studying the impact of climate change on diversity and functions of mycobiome.

Recent Publications:

Walsh E, Luo J, Khiste W, Scalera A, Sajjad S, Zhang N. Pygmaeomycetaceae, a new root associated family in Mucoromycotina from the pygmy pine plains. Mycologia. In press. 2020.

Luo J, Walsh E, Miller S, Blystone D, Zhang N. 2017. Root endophytic fungal communities associated with pitch pine, switchgrass and rosette grass in the pine barrens ecosystem. Fungal Biology. 121:478-487. DOI: 10.1016/j.funbio.2017.01.005

Walsh E, Luo J, Naik A, Preteroti T, Zhang N. 2015. Barrenia, a new genus associated with roots of switchgrass and pine in the oligotrophic pine barrens. Fungal Biology 119: 1216-1225. DOI: 10.1016/j.funbio.2015.09.010