Dr. James Hansen

Dr. James Hansen, former Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, where he leads the Program on Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions. Trained in physics and astronomy under Dr. James Van Allen, his early work on Venus identified its clouds as sulfuric acid. Since the late 1970s, he has focused on human-driven climate change and is widely known for his landmark congressional testimony in the 1980s that brought global warming to public attention. Elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1995 and named one of Time’s 100 most influential people in 2006, he has received major awards including the Rossby and Revelle Medals, the Sophie Prize and the Blue Planet Prize. Hansen is recognized for speaking truth to power and for calling out ineffective climate policies.