Climate Central

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Building Our Team

  • Berrien Moore III
    Executive Director, Senior Research Scientist
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    Dr. Moore left his longtime position as Director of the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space at the University of New Hampshire to become the founding director of Climate Central. As coordinating lead author of the final chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) Third Assessment Report, Dr. Moore shared in the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Among his other honors are the 2007 Dryden Lectureship in Research from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and NASA’s highest civilian award, the Distinguished Public Service Medal. Dr. Moore holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Virginia.

  • Heidi Cullen
    Director of Communications, Senior Research Scientist
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    Dr. Cullen is the climate expert and correspondent for The Weather Channel where she helped start “Forecast Earth,” the first weekly program on climate change and the environment. Before joining The Weather Channel she worked as a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. She received a B.Sc. in engineering and operations research from Columbia University and a Ph.D. in climatology and ocean-atmosphere dynamics from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. She was awarded the 2008 National Conservation Achievement Award for science by the National Wildlife Federation.

  • Joanne Graziano
    Director of Operations
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    Ms. Graziano comes to Climate Central after more than two decades in top leadership across diverse industries - as CIO, as Senior Vice President of HR and Operations, and as an executive business consultant. Her expertise is leveraging process and technology to optimize organizational effectiveness. She is a graduate of The Chubb Institute for Computer Technology and holds a B.S. in Management and Leadership from Warren National University. Ms. Graziano has also volunteered with the homeless and developmentally disabled.

  • Philip Duffy
    Scientific Director, Palo Alto Office and Senior Research Scientist
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    Dr. Duffy comes to Climate Central from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he was a physicist for 22 years. He is the founder and director of the University of California Institute for Research on Climate Change and its Societal Impacts, and an Adjunct Associate Professor at UC Merced. Dr. Duffy holds a Ph.D. in applied physics from Stanford University. Like Dr. Moore, Dr. Duffy is a member of the Nobel-honored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He has published over 50 peer-reviewed papers on many aspects of climate science. His recent work has focused on increasing the spatial resolution of climate projections, to make them more suitable for assessing potential societal impacts of climate change.

  • Jesse Averna
    Video Editor
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    Mr. Averna is a filmmaker, video editor and technology expert. Among many other clients, he has done editing work for Disney, ESPN, the Tony Awards and American Movie Classics, as well as the nonprofits Fount of Mercy, AVSI and We Are Family. He also worked as an online DJ for MTV for five years; as an Apple “Genius” for two more years; and has directed several short films and music videos.  He and his wife, Michelle, form the electronic band Ever. He holds a B.A. in Film from the School of Visual Arts in New York, where he graduated second in his class and edited the documentary that won the top award at the school’s film festival.

  • Kent Cavender-Bares
    Research Scientist-II
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    Dr. Cavender-Bares comes to Climate Central from the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment, where he served as a senior research associate. His research centers, among other things, on assessing of the condition of ecosystems and on the role they play in the carbon cycle. His work included major contributions to a book-length report, “The state of the nation’s ecosystems,” the second edition of which is currently in press. Dr. Cavender-Bares holds a Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

  • Siobhan Darrow
    Contributing Reporter
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    Ms. Darrow worked as a correspondent and producer at CNN for 14 years. Based in Moscow, London, and Los Angeles, she covered the break up of the former Soviet Union and reported on military and political conflict in the Balkans, Middle East, and Northern Ireland. She has a special interest in environmental issues and covered the extensive environmental devastation that was exposed after the fall of communism in the Eastern bloc, including the aftermath of Chernobyl, the disappearing Aral Sea, and nuclear waste leaking into the Baltic Sea. In the U.S., she also covered wildlife endangerment and water resource issues. Darrow is the author of the book, “Flirting with Danger: Confessions of a Reluctant War Reporter.” A graduate of Duke University, Darrow holds a Masters in Psychology from Antioch University.

  • Jessica Harrop
    Researcher and Internet Correspondent
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    Ms. Harrop graduated from Princeton University in the spring of 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and a Certificate in Theater and Dance. Her senior thesis on the behavior and body patterns of the oceanic squid Illex illecebrosus has been submitted for formal journal publication. In the summer after her freshman year at Princeton she worked as a research assistant mapping floodplains in Maryland. The following summer, she worked at the Bermuda Institute of Oceanic Sciences, and during the spring semester of her junior year she studied tropical ecology at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.

  • Nicole Heller
    Research Scientist-I
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    Dr. Heller comes to Climate Central from Franklin and Marshall College, where she was a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology. Her research addresses the effects of global change on biological systems, and especially on the behavior of invasive insect species . She has also worked as a contract biologist for The Nature Conservancy. Among her many grants and fellowships, the most recent is a Switzer Fellowship for environmental leadership. Dr. Heller holds a Ph.D. in Biology from Stanford University.

  • Tom Kreutz
    Senior Research Scientist (Joint with Princeton University)
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    Dr. Kreutz has been a member of the research staff at Princeton University since 1990, working in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department, the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, and, most recently, at the Princeton Environmental Institute, where he has addressed  such energy-related issues  as carbon capture and sequestration from coal-fired power plants and carbon-free  hydrogen production. Dr. Kreutz holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Princeton University.

  • Eric Larson
    Senior Research Scientist (Joint with Princeton University)
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    Dr. Larson is a research engineer with the Energy Systems Analysis Group at the Princeton Environmental Institute, and is on the affiliated faculty of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton. His research interests include engineering, economic, and policy-related assessments of advanced clean-energy technologies, and he has participated in collaborative research with colleagues not only in the U.S. but also in Europe, South America, and Asia. Among many other projects, he is currently co-leading a program on low-emission energy strategies with colleagues at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Dr. Larson holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Minnesota.

  • Michael Lemonick
    Senior Staff Writer
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    Lemonick covered science and the environment for TIME magazine for nearly 21 years, and has also written for Discover, Scientific American, Wired, New Scientist and The Washington Post. Lemonick is the author of four books, and a cover story for TIME was featured in the anthology “Best American Science and Nature Writing 2007.” He has taught science and environmental journalism at Princeton, Columbia, Johns Hopkins and New York Universities. He holds a Master of Science in Journalism from Columbia University.

  • Charles Lyons
    Producer
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    Dr. Lyons has worked as an associate producer of documentaries for public television, including “More than Broken Glass: Memories of Kristallnacht,” and as a writer-producer for ABC News programs including PrimeTime, I-Caught, and 20/20. He directed the short film “The Ghost of F. Scott Fitzgerald,” which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and aired on the Independent Film Channel. Lyons has contributed articles on film to The New York Times, served as a staff reporter for Variety, and is the author of the book, “The New Censors: Movie and Culture Wars.” He has taught film at Yale, Columbia and UCLA. He holds a Ph.D. in Theatre and Film from Columbia University.

  • Ben Strauss
    Program Strategist, Research Scientist-I
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    Before joining Climate Central, Dr. Strauss worked for Abt Associates, co-organized the Campus Earth Summit, and authored a report on college environmental education and practices for the Nathan Cummings Foundation. He is also a founding board member of Grist.org, and was a founding director of the Environmental Leadership Program. Dr. Strauss holds a Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University.

  • Claudia Tebaldi
    Research Scientist-II
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    Dr. Tebaldi comes to Climate Central from the Carnegie Institution at Stanford University, where she was a visiting investigator at the Department of Global Ecology. She was previously a Project Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and continues to collaborate with NCAR scientists. Her research focuses primarily on the statistical analysis of climate change models, focusing on the relation between their performance in simulating current climate and their reliability in predicting future climate change, especially at the regional level. She holds a Ph.D. in statistics from Duke University.

  • Iveta Weinberg
    Office Administrator
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    Ms. Weinberg has had a wide and varied career in business and public service on two continents. After receiving her bachelor’s degree from the Ostrava Business Academy in her native Czech Republic, she was recruited by one of the country’s most prestigious marketing firms. In 1999 she relocated to London, England, where she became a certified health advocate and interpreter in the British legal system. In 2005 she served as a personal assistant to the CEO and an office manager for an international apparel manufacturer.

  • Remik Ziemlinski
    Graphic Programmer and Designer
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    Mr. Ziemlinski comes to Climate Central from the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL), a research lab of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. His specialty is turning data from climate models into charts, graphs, animations and other graphic representations that make these complex datasets easily comprehensible. Among other programming languages, he is fluent in KML, the language employed in Google Earth software. Before coming to GFDL, Mr. Ziemlinski worked for the Raytheon Missile and Radar Systems Group. He holds a master’s degree in computer science from Cornell University.

Video ThumbFeatured Video: "Montana: Trout and Drought"

How is climate change affecting Montana? Warmer springs are making snow melt sooner, and early snowmelt leaves rivers low by summer's end. A look at what it all means for anglers, farmers and other Montanans, and how they are responding.