Opening Session Speaker

Dr. Gale Buchanan
Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics

Dr. Gale Buchanan received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in Agronomy from the University of Florida in 1959 and 1962, respectively, and the Ph.D. in Plant Physiology, with minors in Botany and Agronomy, from Iowa State University in 1965. Dr. Buchanan spent the first 21 years of his professional career with Auburn University in the Department of Agronomy and Soils, with primary teaching and research responsibilities in weed science. He served as Dean and Director of the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station from October 1, 1980 to September 30, 1985. On April 14, 1986, he was appointed Associate Director of the Georgia Agricultural Experiment Stations and Resident Director of the Coastal Plain Experiment Station. He served as Interim Director of the Georgia Agricultural Experiment Stations from June, 1994 to February, 1995. He became Dean and Director of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences March 1, 1995 up to 2006. Currently, he serves as the USDA-Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics.

-- Provided courtesy of USDA

Return to top

Plenary Session: Impacts of Climate Variability
and Climate Change on Agriculture and Natural Resources

Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig

Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig is a Senior Research Scientist at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at Columbia University. Her primary research involves the development of interdisciplinary methodologies by which to assess the potential impacts of and adaptations to global environmental change. She has joined impact models with global climate models (GCMs) to predict future outcomes of both land-based and urban systems under altered climate conditions. Advances include the development of climate change scenarios for impact analysis, and the application of impact models at relevant spatial and temporal scales for regional and national assessments. Recognizing that the complex interactions engendered by global environmental change can best be understood by coordinated teams of experts, Dr. Rosenzweig has organized and led large-scale interdisciplinary, national, and international studies of climate change impacts and adaptation. She 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. She is also a Coordinating Lead Author for the IPCC Working Group II Fourth Assessment Report. She is a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship and an AAAS Fellow. She leads the Climate Impacts research group at the Goddard Institute of Space Studies, whose mission is to investigate the interactions of climate (both variability and change) on systems and sectors important to human well-being.

Dr. Rosenzweig received her Ph.D. in Plant, Soil, and Environmental Sciences from the University of Massachusetts in 1991. She earned an M.S. in Soils and Crops from Rutgers University and a BA in Agricultural Sciences from Cook College.

James O’Brien

James O’Brien is Emeritus Robert 0. Lawton Distinguished Professor of Meteorology & Oceanography and the Director for the Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies at The Florida State University. A member of FSU's faculty for more than 35 years and perhaps best known for his early, basic research into El Niño, O'Brien has been the recipient of myriad professional honors and citations. He is a Fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a Foreign Fellow in the Russian Academy of Science and a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, among many others.

James received the 2006 Medalist Award from the Florida Academy of Sciences. Each year, the award is presented to a Florida resident who has contributed in an outstanding manner to the promotion of the scientific research, to the stimulation of interest in the sciences, or to the diffusion of scientific knowledge. He was also honored when the Japanese Oceanographic Society (JOS) selected him as a recipient of its 2006 "Uda Prize" in recognition of his long-term contributions as a JOS member, particularly through his education and support of young people from Japan. He was the first non-Japanese scientist to receive the prize. James received his M.S. and Ph. D from Texas A&M University in Meteorology.

Dr. Thomas L. Crisman

Dr. Thomas L. Crisman is Patel Professor of the Environment at University of South Florida with joint appointments in the Patel Center for Global Solutions and the Biology Department. Prior to joining USF in 2007, he was professor in the Department of Environmental Engineering Sciences at University of Florida for 30 years and director of the Howard T. Odum Center for Wetlands. He research has focused on the ecology, conservation, management and restoration of subtropical and tropical lakes, streams and wetlands with major research projects in Brazil, Costa Rica, Greece, Spain and Uganda. Climate change research has been an emphasis of his personal research for 40 years with both paleoecological approaches used for reconstructing watershed responses to changing climate over the past 12,000 years and related responses of lake structure and function and developing projections of future climate scenarios for Florida and the Mediterranean basin. For the past decade, he has been exploring options for using wet agriculture as a conservation and water management technique throughout his research sites globally.

Jerry L. Hatfield, Ph.D.

Dr. Jerry L. Hatfield is the Laboratory Director of the USDA-ARS National Soil Tilth Laboratory in Ames, Iowa. He received his Ph.D. from Iowa State University in 1975 in the area of Agricultural Climatology and Statistics a M.S. in Agronomy from the University of Kentucky in 1972, and B.S. from Kansas State University in Agronomy in 1971. He served on the faculty of the University of California-Davis as a biometeorologist from 1975 through 1983 and then joined USDA-Agricultural Research Service in Lubbock, Texas as the Research Leader of the Plant Stress and Water Conservation Research Unit from 1983 through 1989. He was appointed Laboratory Director of the National Soil Tilth Laboratory in 1989. His responsibilities have included the management of the laboratory research program and technical oversight of the multi-location, multi-agency environmental quality program to assess the impact of farming systems on environmental quality and the development of a quality assurance/quality control data for the analytical portion of the project. Dr. Hatfield currently serves as the Technical Leader for the air quality projects within USDA-ARS and responsible for fostering interactions among research locations and is co-leader of the Air Quality Working Group of the USDA-EPA AFO Research Task Force. He served on the Governors Water Quality Task Force in Iowa to evaluate potential solutions to water quality solutions. He serves as the USDA-ARS representative to the Heinz Center project on the State of the Nation’s Ecosystems, the Key Indicators Initiative, National Audubon society project on Waterbirds on Working Lands, and Agricultural Air Quality Task Force for USDA, and lead author on the Agriculture section of the Synthesis and Assessment Product 4.3 on “The Effects of Climate Change on Agriculture, Land Resources, Water Resources, and Biodiversity”. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America and is Past-President of the American Society of Agronomy. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Soil and Water Conservation Society. He is the author or co-author of 347 publications and the editor of 10 monographs including Nitrogen in the Environment: Sources, Problems and Management.

Return to top

Plenary Session: Stakeholder Needs for Climate Information
Related to Agriculture and Natural Resources

Virginia Guzman

Virginia Guzman is the Chief of Non-Insurance Programs for the United States Department of Agriculture, Risk Management Agency (RMA). RMA, traditionally involved in crop insurance, began a program to develop “non-insurance” risk management tools as a result of the Agricultural Risk Protection Act of 2000. Since then, Virginia has directed the effort to partner with public and private entities for the research and development of an array of new and innovative tools that go beyond traditional crop insurance to assist agricultural producers in mitigating the risks inherent in agricultural production. The partnerships are multiple-year research projects that include the development of tools as wide ranging as the development of labor cooperatives; to tools to limit the transmission of disease in livestock; to an early frost prediction system in the Southeast.

Virginia's career in the Federal Government, after completion of graduate studies in economics, began with the Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics where she worked on a variety of Bureau programs and finally as Chief of Economic Analysis and Information. Virginia began her career with USDA’s Risk Management Agency 10 years ago as an economist and as manager in the Research and Development Division which was devoted to the development and maintenance of new insurance programs particularly those related to specialty crops. Her current position is as the Chief of the Non-Insurance Programs Branch in the Actuarial and Product Design Division in Kansas City. Her current responsibilities include award, oversight and monitoring of RMA research partnership funding. Currently RMA has over 60 active partnerships and has devoted approximately $60M to partnerships for the development of non-insurance risk management tools.

Phil Pasteris

Phil Pasteris is a Principal Technologist with the CH2M HILL Global Water Resources Business Group. He is responsible for providing technical input and senior review for water resources-related climate change proposals, projects, and papers; leading and supporting client interface with federal government agencies supporting water/environment climate change projects and programs; and maintaining corporate understanding and leadership in climate change modeling and technologies that impact the water cycle.

Formerly with Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), he was responsible for the production and distribution of Water Supply Forecasts for the Western U.S. and management of the NRCS National Climate Program. During his nearly 33 years of federal service, he established NRCS web-based delivery of climate and water supply products and also provided the vision and venture funding for the PRISM climate mapping system and the Applied Climate Information System.

Mr. Pasteris was the principal author of the Standard Hydrometeorological Exchange Format (SHEF) and a core author of the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS). He has worked closely with the Western States Water Council to create the “Water Needs and Strategies for a Sustainable Future” publication and served on numerous regional and national workgroups to establish strategies that provide climate and water-based solutions to a variety of users at local, regional, and national scales.
Mr. Pasteris received an M.S. in Meteorology from the University of Oklahoma in 1975 and a B.S. in Meteorology, Northern Illinois University in 1973.

His career positions include Principal Technologist, CH2M HILL, Portland, Oregon from 2008 to present, Supervisory Physical Scientist, National Water and Climate Center, USDA-NRCS, Portland, OR from 2003-2008, Supervisory Meteorologist, National Water and Climate Center, USDA-NRCS, Portland, OR from 1990-2003, Senior Hydrologist, Portland River Forecast Center, NOAA-NWS, Portland, OR from 1978-1990, Hydrologist, Fort Worth River Forecast Center, NOAA-NWS, Fort Worth, TX from 1975-1978.

William Patrick Cockrell, Sr.

William Patrick Cockrell, Sr. is the Executive Director of Organization and Programs for Florida Farm Bureau Federation. In this position he directly oversees the organization’s public relations, its field services and agricultural policy areas. Pat has direct responsibility for developing and implementing the Federation’s strategic plan.

He has thirty years experience with Florida Farm Bureau, beginning as a Field Man where he worked directly with county Farm Bureaus and ultimately moved to the position that he currently holds. During Pat’s tenure he has served as Florida Farm Bureau’s national legislative coordinator in Washington and is currently one of four registered lobbyists for the organization with the Florida Legislature and the State’s agencies.

During his career Pat has served on several Commissions, Task Forces and committees that were appointed by the Governor, Commissioner of Agriculture or Commissioner of Education, as well as the Speaker of the House and other legislative committee chairmen. Over the years he has been actively involved in the agricultural policy area in Florida and nationally.

Samuel W. Scott, Ph.D.
International Economist and Business Development Strategist

Dr. Samuel Scott (Scotty) is a graduate of the University of Florida (M.S. and Ph.D. in Food and Resource Economics) with over thirty (30) years of experience in international economics and business development. His areas of expertise consist of international trade, marketing, finance, economic development, entrepreneurship/enterprise development and agribusiness management. Dr. Scott has been involved in several operations with various State, Federal, Multilateral Agencies, NGOs and private industries spanning some 300+ domestic and international interventions.

As an economist his work with several multidisciplinary teams and partners has covered economic development, risk management, small business (SME) development, investment banking/project finance, import/export management, international management consulting and market research, market development, export readiness, trade development and finance, food safety, enterprise diversification planning, marketing planning, strategic planning, management audits, project management and evaluations, benchmarking, financial management, fixed-based operations, community loan fund and banking, microfinance, economic development, real estate development and investment.

He is currently the President and Chief Executive Officer at the North-South Institute (NSI), Inc., for economic development, entrepreneurship, enterprise development, international business and trade, sustainable systems, renewable resource development and education.

The North-South Instituteis a 501(c) 3 multidisciplinary group whose objective is to promote sustainable development systems and foster eco-economic development of small farmers, rural small businesses, homemakers and semi-rural and peri-urban communities, orphanages, schools and immigrants. Its activities target the developing sectors of the Southern United States and emerging markets of selected countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Central Eastern Europe and Asia. The implementation strategy involves the empowerment and enhancement of the capabilities of individuals, organizations, communities and industry through education, entrpreneurship and enterpriedevelopment training, consultancy, research and policy analysis, and asset acquisition

He is also General Partner of Global Strategy Group, LLC an international business and trade organization engaged in international business, project finance, import/export management, real estate development and investment, trade finance, business and market research and trade finance.

Return to top

Plenary Session: Integrated Approaches that Combine Research, Extension, and Education in the Application of Climate Information

Jim Verdin

Jim Verdin is a Scientist and Project Manager for the USGS Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center. In 2007, he was named to serve a two-year term as Deputy Director of the new National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) Program Office in Boulder, Colorado. His research interests lie with the use of remote sensing and geospatial modeling methods to address questions of hydrology, agriculture, and hydroclimatic hazards. Jim has led USGS activities in support of USAID’s Famine Early Warning Systems Network since 1995. He has extensive experience in geographic characterization of drought hazards for food security assessment in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Jim is also active in advancing the use of remote sensing for drought early warning in the U.S., in partnership with the National Drought Mitigation Center. Prior to joining USGS, he worked eleven years with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Jim has B.S. (University of Wisconsin, Madison) and M.S. (Colorado State University) degrees in civil and environmental engineering, and a Ph.D. (University of California, Santa Barbara) in geography.

Kenneth C. Crawford

Dr. Ken Crawford, a Regents’ Professor of Meteorology at the University of Oklahoma, is Director of the Oklahoma Climatological Survey and serves as the State Climatologist for Oklahoma. He came to OU in 1989, following a 30-year career with the National Weather Service (NWS). Professor Crawford was a co-creator of the Oklahoma Mesonetwork, a statewide network of 120 automated observing stations that acquire and transmit five-minute observations on an around-the-clock basis. In addition, Dr. Crawford helped design OK-FIRST, an award-winning program (Harvard University, 2001) that was developed to bring NWS and Mesonet products to public safety officials across Oklahoma. Dr. Crawford also has been co-leader of a program to use data from the Oklahoma Mesonetwork in the K-12 schools of Oklahoma; currently, more than 250 public & private schools make extensive use of Mesonet data.

During his tenure with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Dr. Crawford served five years as a Research Meteorologist for the National Severe Storms Laboratory, 15 years as an operational meteorologist, and 10 years as a senior field manager for the NWS. In his last NWS position, Dr. Crawford was the Oklahoma Area Manager at the NWS Forecast Office in Norman. Between June 2004 and September 2006, Professor Crawford was actively engaged with NOAA/NWS to help them take steps toward developing a national Mesonet through their COOP modernization program.

Dr. Crawford is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, serves as one of their Councilors, and was awarded the prestigious ‘Cleveland Abbe Award’ in 2002. He is a longtime member of the National Weather Association, was it’s national president in 1988, served as Councilor in 1990-1991, and was ‘Member of the Year’ in 1991. Dr. Crawford also is the immediate past President of the American Association of State Climatologists. He served for six years on the National Research Council’s NWS Modernization Committee, and was awarded a Silver Medal from the U. S. Department of Commerce in 1988 and the NOAA Administrator’s Award in 1985. In October 2007, Professor Crawford was named a “Water Pioneer” by the Oklahoma Water Resources Board for noteworthy contributions in management and conservation of Oklahoma’s water. He also has made numerous invited lectures to international audiences — in the Peoples Republic of China, in Canada, in Morocco, at many locations in eastern Australia, and in Italy.

Dr. Crawford earned his BS in 1966 at the University of Texas in Austin, his MS in 1967 at Florida State University, and his Ph. D. in 1977 at the University of Oklahoma.

James W. Jones
Distinguished Professor of Agricultural and Biological Engineering
Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida

Dr. Jones research focuses on developing and applying models of cropping systems aimed at understanding interactions between climate, crops, soil, and management. His research also focuses on application of those models for improving management of cropping systems, on use of climate forecasts to understand and manage crop production risks, and on assessing impacts of climate change on agricultural production. Dr. Jones is co-developer of the Southeastern Climate Consortium, which is developing methods for applying climate forecasts to reduce risks to agricultural and natural systems and developing decision support tools to help farmers and natural resource managers reduce those risks. He is author of more than 200 scientific journal articles. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, Fellow of the American Society of Agronomy, Fellow of the Soil Science Society of America, and serves on several international science advisory boards. Dr. Jones also teaches a graduate course on techniques for developing and applying biological and agricultural models that respond to climate variability, soil characteristics, and management.

John M. Antle

John M. Antle is a professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics and Economics at Montana State University. He received the Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago in 1980. Since then he has been an assistant and associate professor at the University of California, Davis; a Gilbert White Fellow and University Fellow at Resources for the Future in Washington, D.C.; and an associate professor and professor at Montana State University since 1987. During 1989 90 he served as a senior staff economist for the President's Council of Economic Advisers in Washington, D.C. He served as a member of the National Research Council's Board on Agriculture (1991 97), and a member of the NRC's Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change (1998-99); and was a lead and contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment reports published in 2001 and 2007. He was President of the American Agricultural Economics Association (1999-2000), and received the AAEA outstanding journal article award (1988) and named a Distinguished Fellow (2001). His current research focuses on the sustainability of agricultural systems in industrialized and developing countries, terrestrial and geologic greenhouse gas mitigation and impacts of climate change in agriculture, and payments for ecosystem services in agriculture.

Return to top

Plenary Session: Extension and Application of Climate Information
for Agriculture and Natural Resources

Victor Murphy

Victor is the Climate Service Program Manager for the NWS Southern Region Headquarters located in Ft. Worth, TX. In this capacity since 2002, he oversees the role that the 32 Southern Region Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs) play in the daily delivery of climate data, products, and services to an assorted array of customers. Victor is also a member of the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) implementation team. In 2007, Victor received a NOAA Administrators Award for his role in creating new downscaled local climate information products and services in response to increasing customer requests so that local and national decision-makers can make economically, socially, and environmentally sound choices.
Victor still also serves as the NWS Southern Region ASOS Program Manager, a position he has held since 1995. In this role, Victor was responsible for the commissioning of over 200 ASOS sites within the NWS Southern Region and still oversees their day to day operations.

Victor earned his BS in Meteorology in 1980 from the Florida State University and his J.D. in 1994 from the University of Houston.

Louise E. Jackson

Louise E. Jackson graduated with her Ph. D in Botany from the University of Washington in 1982. She is currently a Professor and Extension Specialist at UC Davis, and studies soil and root ecology in agricultural and grassland ecosystems. Jackson’s research compares ecosystem services across farmscapes and along gradients from intensive, irrigated agriculture to low input, grazed, upland systems in California. She has also compared organic and conventionally grown tomato fields, and discovered differences in nitrous oxide emissions and nitrogen retention that increase the mitigation potential for greenhouse gas reduction in organic systems. Comparisons have also been made between processes that increase carbon storage in conventional, reduced tillage, and no-tillage agricultural systems.

Louise has authored or co-authored over 95 publications. One special publication she co-authored is "Climate Change, Challenges and Solutions for California Agricultural Landscapes" for the California Energy Commission and California Environmental Protection Agency. Louise is also a professional member of the Ecological Society of America, as well as the Agronomy, Crop Science, and Soil Science Societies of America.

Clyde Fraisse

Clyde Fraisse is an Assistant Professor and Climate Extension Specialist at the Agricultural & Biological Engineering Department, University of Florida. Dr. Fraisse extension and applied research programs focus on developing and providing climate information and decision support tools to help agriculture, forestry, and water resource managers better cope with uncertainty and climate associated risks. Together with his colleagues from the Southeast Climate Consortium, Dr. Fraisse developed and maintains AgClimate.org, a web-based climate information system customized for the States of Alabama, Florida, and Georgia. His research and experience include the application of cropping systems models in conjunction with climate forecasts to assess impacts of climate variability on crop production and the development of decision support systems in academia and the private industry. Dr. Fraisse earned a doctorate degree in Agricultural Engineering from Colorado State University, a Master’s degree from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium in Irrigation Engineering, and an undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering and Cartography from the Federal University of Paraná, Brazil. Dr. Fraisse is a member of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, as well as the Agronomy, Crop Science, and Soil Science Societies of America.

Walter E. Baethgen

Walter E. Baethgen is the Director of the Program for Latin America and the Caribbean in the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI - The Earth Institute, Columbia University). In the IRI he has been establishing regional research programs that aim to improve climate risk assessment and risk management in the agricultural, health, water resources and disasters sectors. Before joining the IRI Baethgen was a Senior Scientist in the Research and Development Division of IFDC (International Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development Center) where he worked mainly in Information and Decision Support Systems for the Agricultural Sector (1987-2003). During 1989-90, he acted as a consultant for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations in Colonia, Uruguay. Since 1990 (first with IFDC and now with the IRI) he has been establishing and coordinating regional research programs in Latin America in collaboration with National and International organizations.

Dr Baethgen has acted as a consultant for the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the United Nations (UNDP, UNIDO), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World Bank and the Inter-American Institute for Agricultural Science (IICA). He participated as Principal Investigator in several NOAA and NASA International research programs. He also acted as consultant for the governments of Brazil, Paraguay, Guatemala and Uruguay, and for the private sector in Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela. He was a lead author for IPCC’s Second (1995) and Third (2001) Assessments Reports and contributing author for the Fourth Assessment, as well as the review editor for IPCC’s special issue on Technology Transfer (2000).

He is a member of scientific advisory committees of several International organizations including the CGIAR (Science Council's Standing Panel on Mobilizing Science) and CIIFEN (Centro Internacional para la Investigación del Fenómeno de El Niño). He has also served as reviewer of several International research programs (IAI, NOAA, NASA, German government) and he is currently an Editorial Board Member, of the peer-reviewed journal Agricultural Systems published by Elsevier Science.

He acted as a member of the advisory committees of the International Research Institute for Climate Prediction (IRI) and of CLIMAG (Research Program for Climate Forecasts Applications in Agriculture, World Meteorological Organization). He was also a member of an Expert Team of Open Program Area Group (OPAG, WMO): “Developing Guidance on Climate Watches”. He was also a steering committee member during the establishment of the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI).

Baethgen obtained his PhD and M.Sc. degrees in Crop and Soil Environmental Sciences from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He has over 60 publications to his credit.

Return to top

Plenary Session: Short- and Long-term Needs and Opportunities
for Education to Promote the Use of Climate Information
by Decision Makers

Dr. Mark Cane

Dr. Mark Cane is a G. Unger Vetlesen Professor of Earth and Climate Sciences at Columbia University, as well as the Director for Master of Arts Program in Climate and Society and Chair of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. With Lamont colleague Dr. Stephen Zebiak, he devised the first numerical model able to simulate El Niño. In 1985 this model was used to make the first physically based forecasts of El Niño. Over the years the Zebiak-Cane model has been the primary tool used by many investigators to enhance understanding of ENSO. Dr. Cane has also worked extensively on the impact of El Niño on human activity, especially agriculture. His efforts over many years were instrumental in the creation of the International Research Institute for Seasonal to Interannual Climate Prediction.

In recent years Dr. Cane’s research interests have often focused on paleoclimate problems, from the Pliocene to the last millennium. Dr. Cane has written some 200 papers on a broad range of topics in oceanography and climatology. He has served on numerous international and national committees. In 1992 Dr. Cane received the Sverdrup Gold Medal of the American Meteorological Society, and in 2003 he received the Cody Award in Ocean Sciences from Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society; the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Geophysical Union, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Cane received his M.A. and Ph.D. for Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Tim Wheeler

Professor Tim Wheeler heads the Crops and Climate Group of the Walker Institute for Climate System Research, and is Director of the Plant Environment Laboratory at the University of Reading. He trained as a biologist before taking a PhD in crop science at the University of Reading. Tim has more than 20 years experience of research on how climate affects crops. This has included using novel techniques to examine the effects of carbon dioxide and warmer temperatures on crop plants, and how short periods of hot temperature can reduce grain yield. He has developed sophisticated methods of forecasting how future climates will impact on crop productivity, focusing on the challenge of using large-scale climate model output for crop simulation and prediction. His research has been cited in all the major climate change assessments of the last decade: the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Assessments of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, and the World Bank Development Review. In 2005, Tim gave the prestigious Royal Society Public Lecture in London on ‘Growing crops in a changing climate’. At the University, Tim chairs the Postgraduate Committee that has oversight for the training of about 1400 PhD students and 350 post-doctoral researchers at any one time.

Paul Ruscher

Paul Ruscher is Associate Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Meteorology at the Florida State University. He is a boundary layer meteorologist and applied climatologist with interests in coastal processes and geoscience education. A faculty member at FSU for 20 years, he has led major research and educational outreach efforts at the University and participated in educational outreach activities of the American Meteorological Society, National Science Foundation, NOAA, and UCAR. He received his PhD in Atmospheric Sciences from Oregon State University in 1987, and has received teaching awards at two institutions, and also has received awards for his presentations at conferences of the International Society of Information Technology and Teacher Education. His teaching includes experiences teaching online at FSU and as an adjunct professor of earth sciences at Montana State University. He is the North American representative to the GLOBE International Advisory Committee, a liaison group between the GLOBE program and its funding agencies and international partners, and co-founder and director of the EXPLORES! program. He has specialized in professional and curriculum development in the geosciences and is designing a new course for students at FSU in Climate Change Science at the present time.

Return to top