Cynthia Rosenzweig is a Senior Research Scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and an Adjunct Senior Research Scientist at the Columbia Climate School. She is also a Professor in the Department of Environmental Science at Barnard College. At NASA GISS, she heads the Climate Impacts Group whose mission is to investigate the interactions of climate (both variability and change) on systems and sectors important to human well-being.
Dr. Rosenzweig has organized and led large-scale interdisciplinary, national, and international studies of climate change impacts and adaptation in rural and urban settings. She is co-director of the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN) and co-editor of the UCCRN Assessment Reports on Climate Change and Cities, the first-ever global, interdisciplinary, cross-regional, science-based assessment series to address climate risks, adaptation, mitigation, and policy mechanisms relevant to cities. She was co-chair of the New York City Panel on Climate Change, a body of experts convened by the Mayor advising the city on adaptation for its critical infrastructure, and co-led the Metropolitan East Coast Regional Assessment of the U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, sponsored by the U.S. Global Change Research Program.
Dr. Rosenzweig is a co-founder and a member of the Executive Committee of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project (AgMIP), a globally integrated transdisciplinary study of climate impacts on the agricultural sector at national and global scales, including the participation of over 1000 leading researchers from developed and developing nations. Dr. Rosenzweig was Coordinating Lead Author of the Food Security Chapter for the IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land. She was also Coordinating Lead Author on observed climate change impacts for the IPCC Working Group II Fourth Assessment Report.