NASA announced on January 10 local time that Katherine Calvin will be the agency's chief scientist and senior climate adviser on January 17, and her responsibilities include serving as chief executive and chief adviser to other agency leaders on science programs, strategic planning and policy. She will also represent the agency's strategic scientific objectives and contributions in the national and international scientific communities.
Katherine Calvin
Calvin succeeds Jim Green and Gavin Schmidt. Green retired from his chief scientist position on Jan. 1 after more than 40 years at NASA; Schmidt, who has served as a senior climate adviser since February 2021, will continue as director of the Goddard Space Research Institute in New York.
NASA created a senior climate advisor position to ensure that the climate science goals set by the Biden administration are effectively met. In February 2021, NASA joined the national climate task force set up by the administration to encourage the government to take steps to address climate change and issued a climate action plan to continue important earth science and climate research to avoid climate impacts on the mission.
"I am very pleased and welcome Calvin to NASA, where she will use her expertise in integrated human-earth systems modeling to help the Biden administration obtain the data necessary to achieve the critical goal of protecting the planet." "I would also like to thank Jim and Gavin for their invaluable contributions to NASA and the world as chief scientist and senior climate advisor," nasa administrator Bill Nelson said. ”
Bill Nelson
Calvin said: "Climate change is one of the biggest challenges facing our country and the planet. NASA is a world leader in climate and earth sciences. I am excited to be part of the team that contributes to this important scientific task." ”
Previously, Calvin was a geoscientist at Northwestern National Laboratory and the Institute for Global Change, where he developed global change analysis models and the U.S. Department of Energy's 10 billion times Model of the Earth system. She holds M.S., Ph.D. in Management, Science, and Engineering from Stanford University, and b.S. in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of Maryland.