Michael Mann

Director of Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media;
Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Michael Mann is Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania, with a secondary appointment in the Annenberg School for Communication. His research focuses on climate science and climate change. He was selected by Scientific American as one of the fifty leading visionaries in science and technology in 2002, was awarded the Hans Oeschger Medal of the European Geophysical Union in 2012. He made Bloomberg News‘ list of fifty most influential people in 2013.  He has received the Friend of the Planet Award from the National Center for Science Education, the Stephen H. Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communication from Climate, the Award for Public Engagement with Science from the AAAS, the Climate Communication Prize from the American Geophysical Union and the Leo Szilard Award of the American Physical Society. He received the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement 2019 and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2020. He is a Fellow of the AGU, AMS, GSA, AAAS and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He is co-founder of RealClimate.org, author of more than 200 peer-reviewed and edited publications, numerous op-eds and commentaries, and five books including Dire Predictions, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars, The Madhouse Effect, The Tantrum that Saved the World, and The New Climate War.

Heather Kostick

Administrative Coordinator of Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media

Heather Kostick is the Administrative Coordinator for the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media. Heather manages center communications, planning, and programming while collaborating with Penn organizations and centers, as well as, external organizations to further the center’s mission of science and sustainability communication in the media. She joins PCSSM after having previously worked for the Masters of Environmental Studies and Applied Geosciences programs in LPS. Heather received her B.Sc. in Wildlife Conservation from Juniata College, her M.E.S. from the University of Pennsylvania, and is a Ph.D. candidate in Environmental Science at Drexel University.

Vanessa Schipani

Writer for the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media

Vanessa Schipani is a PhD candidate in Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. Her philosophical research primarily concerns the importance of science communication in maintaining a healthy democracy. Prior to this, she was a science journalist for 10 years, working most recently for FactCheck.org, where she vetted claims made by politicians about climate change to public health. Her journalistic work has also been published in Scientific American, USA Today, Quanta and The American Scholar. See www.vanessaschipani.com for more information.

Bekezela Mbofana

Communications Assistant for the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media

Zela serves as the Communications Assistant at the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media. She manages and maintains the center’s social media pages and websites and is responsible for sharing important communications from the Center and other related offices. Through summer internships in law, agriculture and consulting, she has gained experience in corporate communications and puts those skills to use for PCSSM. 

Kathleen Hall Jamieson

Kathleen Hall Jamieson is the Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication of the University of Pennsylvania, the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Director of the University’s Annenberg Public Policy Center, and Program Director of the Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands. She has authored or co-authored 17 books, including Creating Conspiracy Beliefs: How Our Thoughts Are Shaped (2022) and Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President, which won the Association of American Publishers’ 2019 R.R. Hawkins Award. Six of the books that Jamieson has authored or co-authored have received a total of 12 political science or communication book awards (Cyberwar, Packaging the Presidency, Eloquence in an Electronic Age, Spiral of Cynicism, Presidents Creating the Presidency, and The Obama Victory). She co-edited The Oxford Handbook of Political Communication and The Oxford Handbook of the Science of Science Communication. In 2020, the National Academy of Sciences awarded Jamieson its Public Welfare Medal for her “non-partisan crusade to ensure the integrity of facts in public discourse and development of the science of scientific communication to promote public understanding of complex issues.”

Cornelia Colijn

Cornelia Colijn is Executive Director, Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. Cory Colijn envisions, plans, and manages all center programming, while building connections with students, faculty, and leaders in the energy industry. She joined the Kleinman Center team after serving as the administrative director of Penn’s Professional Programs in Earth and Environmental Science. Prior to coming to Penn, she worked for several Philadelphia-based nonprofits, focusing on the ecological restoration of Philadelphia’s extensive park system. Colijn holds a master’s degree in applied geoscience and a bachelor’s degree in earth and environmental science, both from the University of Pennsylvania.

Kathleen Morrison

Kathleen Morrison is  Chair of the Department of Anthropology and the Sally and Alvin V. Shoemaker Professor of Anthropology and co-chair of the Penn Environmental Initiative (EII). Her research is focused on governing regimes, agricultural change, and their environmental impacts in the Deccan Plateau of South India. Her books include Daroji Valley: Landscape History, Place, and the Making of a Dryland Reservoir System, The Vijayanagara Metropolitan Survey, and Fields of Victory: Vijayanagara and the Course of Intensification. Prof. Morrison earned her Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1992, her M.A. from the University of the New Mexico in 1987, and her B.A. From the University of Notre Dame 1984.

Joseph S. Francisco

Joseph S. Francisco is President’s Distinguished Professor of Earth and Environmental Science, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, and co-chair of the Penn Environmental Initiative (EII).. He was the president of the American Chemical Society from 2009-2010. He is currently a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and in 2010 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In his research, Prof. Francisco has applied new tools from theoretical chemistry to atmospheric chemical problems to enhance our understanding of chemistry in the atmosphere at the molecular level. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemical Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983, and a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Texas at Austin in 1977.

Michael Weisberg

Michael Weisberg is Bess W. Heyman President’s Distinguished Professor and Chair of Philosophy, as well as Senior Faculty Fellow and Director of Post-Graduate Programs at Perry World House. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of Biology and Philosophy, advisor to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Nairobi Work Programme, climate advisor to the Republic of Maldives, and directs Penn’s campus-wide research in Galápagos. He is the author of Simulation and Similarity: Using Models to Understand the World and Galápagos: Life in Motion, as well as a contributing author to the IPCC’s 6th Assessment Report. Much of Professor Weisberg’s research is focused on how highly idealized models and simulations can be used to understand complex systems. He also leads efforts to better understanding the interface between humans and wildlife, between humans and the climate system, and how scientific issues are understood by communities in the Americas and in East Asia. Professor Weisberg received a B.S. in Chemistry and a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of California, San Diego in 1999, and continued graduate study in Philosophy and Evolutionary Biology at Stanford University, earning a 2003 Ph.D. in Philosophy.

Susan Joy Hassol

Susan Joy Hassol is the Director of Climate Communication. She is an award-winning climate change communicator and author known for her ability to translate science into English. For 30 years she has helped scientists communicate more effectively and provided clear information to policymakers and journalists. Susan has written and edited numerous high-level reports including the first three U.S. National Climate Assessments. She has testified to the U.S. Senate, written an HBO documentary, and written popular commentaries in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The LA Times, The Boston Globe, Newsweek, Time, The Hill, and Scientific American. Susan is the recipient of the 2021 Ambassador Award from the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and is a Fellow of AGU and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for her exceptional contributions to the communication of climate change science to policymakers and the public. She Tweets @ClimateComms.

John Schwartz

John Schwartz is a professor of practice in journalism and at the UT Austin School of Journalism Media and associate director of U.T.’s new Global Sustainability Leadership Institute. From 1985 until 1992, he worked at Newsweek Magazine, ultimately becoming a senior editor in the business section. He then moved to The Washington Post as a science reporter, writing on a range of topics including federal efforts to regulate the tobacco industry, the Unabomber case, and the school shooting in Jonesboro, Arkansas. In 2000, The New York Times hired him, initially to cover technology. Over the next 21 years, his beats included the U.S. space program, including the loss of the shuttle Columbia and its crew, Hurricane Katrina and the efforts to rebuild hurricane protection around the city, legal affairs and, most recently, climate change. At the NYT and WP, he wrote stories for nearly every section of the newspaper. He retired from The Times on July 31, 2021. He has written several books, including “Oddly Normal: One Family’s Struggle to Help Their Teenage Son Come to Terms with His Sexuality,” and “This Is the Year I Put My Financial Life in Order.”

Anthony Leiserowitz

Anthony Leiserowitz, Ph.D. is the founder and Director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and a Senior Research Scientist at the Yale School of the Environment. He is an expert on public climate change and environmental beliefs, attitudes, policy preferences, and behavior, and the psychological, cultural, and political factors that shape them. He conducts research at the global, national, and local scales, including many surveys of the American public. He conducted the first global study of public values, attitudes, and behaviors regarding sustainable development and has published more than 200 scientific articles, chapters, and reports. He has served as a contributing author, panel member, advisor or consultant to diverse organizations including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (AR6 Report), the National Academy of Sciences (America’s Climate Choices Report), the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, the Harvard Kennedy School, the United Nations Development Program, the Gallup World Poll, and the World Economic Forum, among others. He is a recipient of the Friend of the Planet Award from the National Center for Science Education, the Mitofsky Innovator Award from the American Association of Public Opinion Research, and the Stephen H. Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communication from Climate One. He is also the host of Climate Connections, a radio program broadcast each day on more than 680 stations and frequencies nationwide. Twitter: @ecotone2

Edward Maibach

Edward Maibach—a distinguished University Professor and Director of George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication—is a public health communication scientist who focuses on climate change and related public health challenges. In 2020, Ed was awarded the Stephen Schneider Award for Outstanding Climate Science Communication (with Anthony Leiserowitz), and Mason’s top research honor—the Beck Family Presidential Medal of Excellence in Research and Scholarship, and in 2021 he was identified by Thompson Reuters as one of the world’s 10 most influential scientists working on climate change. Ed previously served as Associate Director of the National Cancer Institute and Worldwide Director of Social Marketing at Porter Novelli, and is currently a Board Member of the Global Climate and Health Alliance.

Marshall Shepherd

Dr. Marshall Shepherd is the Georgia Athletic Association Distinguished Professor of Geography and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Georgia and Director of its Atmospheric Sciences Program.  Dr. Shepherd was the 2013 President of American Meteorological Society (AMS). Prior to academia, he spent 12 years as a scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and was Deputy Project Scientist of the Global Precipitation Measurement Mission. Dr. Shepherd is the host of The Weather Channel’s Weather Geeks Podcast and a senior contributor to Forbes Magazine. In 2021, Dr. Shepherd was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  The only member of the University of Georgia faculty to ever achieve this trifecta. He has received numerous awards including the 2004 White House PECASE Award, the Captain Planet Foundation Protector of the Earth Award, the 2019 AGU Climate Communication Prize, the 2020 Mani L. Bhaumik Award for Public Engagement with Science and the 2018 AMS Helmut Landsberg Award. He received his B.S., M.S. and PhD in meteorology from Florida State University. He has two TEDx talks on climate science and communication that collectively exceed two million viewers. He is routinely asked to brief the media, Congress, and the White House on weather-climate-science related topics. Dr. Shepherd has almost 100 peer-reviewed publications on various topics.

Kim Cobb

Kim Cobb is the Director of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society at Brown University, and Professor in Environment and Society as well as Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences. In her climate research, she uses observations of past and present climate to advance our understanding of future climate change impacts, with a focus on climate extremes and coastal flood hazards. She received her B.A. from Yale University in 1996, and her Ph.D. in Oceanography from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in 2002. Prior to joining Brown in 2022, she served as Director of the Global Change Program at Georgia Tech, Professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and ADVANCE Professor for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. In her research, Kim has sailed on oceanographic cruises and led caving expeditions in the Borneo rainforests. She received a NSF CAREER Award, a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and the Hans Oeschger Medal from the European Geosciences Union in 2019. She was elected as a AAAS Fellow in 2021, and was a Lead Author for the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, released in 2021. As a mother to four, Kim is a strong advocate for women in science, and champions diversity and inclusion in all that she does. She is also devoted to the communication of climate change to the public through media appearances, public speaking, and social media channels, and enjoys frequent exchanges with policymakers about climate impacts and solutions.

Max Boykoff

Max is a Professor in the Environmental Studies department (where he now serves as Chair) at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is also a Fellow in the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. Max has ongoing interests in science and environmental communications, science-policy interactions, and political economics and the environment. He has experience working on six continents, and is a co-author and editor of seven books and edited volumes, along with over 75 articles and book chapters. Among Max’s other activities, he is a Contributing Author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment ‘Mitigation and Policy’ Report, he is a part of the Independent Science Panel for the Deep South Challenge in New Zealand, he is Deputy Editor for the social sciences/history team for the Journal of Climatic Change for over a decade and he has been an advisor on the ‘Don’t Look Up’ film platform. Max also leads the Media and Climate Change Observatory (MeCCO) while he leads the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Colorado Local Science Engagement Network and co-Directs Inside the Greenhouse. Finally of note, Max was named a ‘radical professor undermining democracy’ by David Horowitz in 2009 and also earned the University of Colorado Thomas Jefferson Award for “embodying and advancing the ideals of Thomas Jefferson: broad interests in literature, arts and sciences, and public affairs; a strong concern for the advancement of higher education; a deeply seated sense of individual civic responsibility; and a profound commitment to the welfare and rights of the individual”. Max earned a PhD in Environmental Studies at the University of California Santa Cruz, and a BS in Psychology from The Ohio State University.

Emily Falk

Emily Falk (she/her) is a Professor of Communication, Psychology, and Marketing at the University of Pennsylvania, Director of Penn’s Communication Neuroscience Lab and a Distinguished Fellow of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. Falk is an expert in the science of attitude and behavior change. Her research uses tools from psychology, neuroscience, and communication to examine what makes messages persuasive, why and how ideas spread, and what helps people get on the same page when communicating. Her work has been widely covered in the popular press in the U.S. and abroad (e.g., New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, Forbes, Scientific American, and others), and she has consulted for and collaborated with major corporations, NGOs, and the government. Her research has been recognized by numerous awards, including early career awards from the International Communication Association, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Attitudes Division, a Fulbright grant, Social and Affective Neuroscience Society, a DARPA Young Faculty Award, and the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award. She was named a Rising Star by the Association for Psychological Science. She received her bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience from Brown University, and her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles. 

Ezekiel Emanuel

Ezekiel Emanuel is the vice provost for global initiatives, the Diane v.S. Levy and Robert M. Levy University Professor, and co-director of the Healthcare Transformation Institute at Penn. He has published over 300 articles, mainly on health care reform, research ethics, and end-of-life care, and has authored or edited 15 books. He was a special advisor on health policy to the director of the Office of Management and Budget and National Economic Council from 2009 to 2011.