Peter C. Frumhoff
2022 Fellow
Peter C. Frumhoff served through 2021 as the longtime chief climate scientist and director of science and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. At UCS, he led strategies and initiatives to bring robust scientific expertise to bear on informing public understanding and motivating public policies; guided science, equity and innovation post-doctoral fellowships and served as senior liaison with the scientific community, policymakers and the media.
Frumhoff is currently on sabbatical at the Harvard University Center for the Environment where he is researching the scientific basis for climate litigation against fossil fuel companies and governments.
A global change ecologist, Dr Frumhoff has published widely at the nexus of climate science and policy, including on the role of tropical forests and land-use in climate mitigation, the climate attribution of extreme weather events, the climate responsibilities of fossil fuel companies, the governance of solar geoengineering research, and the water demands of energy in a changing climate.
He serves on the Board of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) and served on the NASEM committee that wrote the 2021 report on Reflecting Sunlight: Recommendations for Solar Geoengineering Research and Research Governance.
He was a lead author of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and lead author of the IPCC Special Report on Land Use, Land-use Change and Forestry. He has guided multiple regional climate impacts assessments, including the Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment (NECIA).
Dr. Frumhoff also serves on the Board of Editors of Elementa: Science of the Anthropocene. Previously, he served on the Board of Directors of the American Wind Wildlife Institute, the Advisory Committee on Climate Change and Natural Resource Science at the US Department of the Interior, and the Board of Editors of Ecological Applications.
Dr. Frumhoff was the 2014 Cox Visiting Professor in the School of Earth Sciences at Stanford University. Previously, he taught at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Harvard University and the University of Maryland, and was an AAAS Science and Diplomacy Fellow at the US Agency for International Development. He received a PhD in ecology and MA in zoology from the University of California at Davis, and a B.A. in psychology from the University of California at San Diego.
Dr. Frumhoff was in residence March 29-31, 2022. The Richman award ceremony and presentation was held on Wednesday, March 30, 2022.
Videos
”From Science to Action on Climate Change,“ March 30, 2022
Peter C. Frumhoff in conversation with Professor Charles Chester, Lecturer in Environmental Studies, March 30, 2022