Columbia University and NASA GISS
Associate Research Scientist
I study climate forcings (things that affect the planet's energy balance) and feedbacks (processes that speed up or slow down warming). Our work here has shown that observational estimates of the Earth's sensitivity to greenhouse gases are probably biased low: assuming climate changes will be small is not a very good idea.
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Postdoctoral Researcher
My postdoctoral work identified a "fingerprint" of human influence on global precipitation patterns and showed that we are already changing rain and snowfall. This is both reassuring, because it suggests climate model projections are credible, and terrifying, because it suggests climate model projections are credible.
Carnegie Institution
Postdoctoral Scholar
How much wind power could we theoretically extract from the atmosphere before severe climate consequences result? Our work showed that this geophysical limit is large- an order of magnitude greater than worldwide electricity demand. So go ahead and put those turbines in the jet stream!
Stanford
Science Fellow
As a Science Fellow at Stanford, I worked on policy-relevant scientific issues like nuclear power safety, climate model downscaling, and electrical grid resilience. Our work suggested that distributed grids, with electricity generated at local scales, can be inherently more fault-tolerant than centralized grids.
Writing
Articles, media, and more
The Parallel Universes of a Woman in Science
Nautilus Magazine
Personal essay about science, love, and choices
The Hidden Importance of Clouds
Nautilus Magazine
Will Nature save us from ourselves?
What's Really Warming the World?
Bloomberg News
Eric Roston and Blacki Migliozzi's splendid visualization of our data
Things to Say
My blog
Sporadically updated and deeply irresponsible
