Anthony J. Brazel Urban Climate Lecture
Each year UCRC brings in one high profile speaker to deliver the Anthony J. Brazel Urban Climate Lecture.
We seek leaders in the field of urban climate science and policy who can articulate key findings and trends in their field to an audience of scientists, students and community stakeholders. We are able to offer this lecture series because of the vision and support of Anthony Brazel, emeritus professor in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning and Senior Global Futures Scientist at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory®.
2025 (Feb. 3): Timon McPhearson
Prof. Timon McPhearson is a globally renowned urban ecologist whose research focuses on urban resilience, climate adaptation, and sustainable city systems. He is a Professor of Urban Ecology at The New School in New York City and Director of the Urban Systems Lab. Dr. McPhearson’s pioneering work has advanced understanding of how nature-based solutions can enhance urban sustainability and climate resilience. His influential contributions have been recognized with prestigious awards, including being named a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and receiving the Sustainability Science Award from the Ecological Society of America. He has published over 100 papers, in top journals, and has been a driving force in bridging science, policy, and practice to address critical urban challenges in a changing climate. Dr. McPhearson was awarded the 2022 Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity as a member of the IPCC and Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. He has received numerous awards, including the Sustainability Science Award and the Innovation in Sustainability Science Award by the Ecological Society of America. He has also been named a NYC Climate Hero by the NYC Department of Transportation and Human Impacts Institute.
2024 (March 21): Winston Chow
Prof. Winston Chow is Co-Chair of Working Group II for the 7th Assessment Report of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He is a Professor of Urban Climate and a Lee Kong Chian Research Fellow at Singapore Management University (Singapore). Prof. Chow is a leading global expert in the field of urban climate, with particular expertise in assessment of urban vulnerability and adaption to climate change. Prof. Chow’s talk was entitled “Cities and the IPCC: Looking back and going forward.”
2023 (April 20): Harindra Joseph S. Fernando
Prof. Harindra “Joe” Fernando is the Wayne and Diana Murdy Endowed Professor of Engineering and Geosciences at Notre Dame. Prof. Fernando is a globally renowned scholar in the field of fluid mechanics, having published over 360 peer-reviewed papers spanning more than 60 distinct journals. He has received numerous awards, including Fellow of the American Meteorological Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, and has been elected to the European Academy. Prof. Fernando’s talk was entitled “From Climate Change to Pedestrian Comfort."
2022 (April 19): Karen Seto
Dr. Karen Seto is the Frederick C. Hixon Professor of geography and urbanization science at the Yale School of the Environment. She is an urban and land change scientist whose central research focus is how urbanization will affect the planet. A geographer by training, she integrates remote sensing, field interviews and modeling methods to study urbanization and land change, forecast urban growth and examine the environmental consequences of urban expansion.
Professor Seto is co-leading the urban mitigation chapter for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 6th Assessment Report and co-lead the same chapter for the IPCC 5th Assessment Report. She has received numerous awards for her scientific contributions. She is the recipient of a NASA New Investigator Program Award, a National Science Foundation Career Award, and the Outstanding Contributions to Remote Sensing Research Award from the American Association of Geographers. She was named an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow in 2009. She is an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
About the talk: The urban share of global greenhouse gas emissions is substantive and continues to increase. At the same time, cities are disproportionately affected by climate change due to their concentration of people, economic activities and assets. This talk will discuss key findings from the recently approved 6th Assessment Report of the IPCC on how future climate change is likely to affect cities and how urban areas can contribute to solving the climate crisis.
2021 (March 24): J. Marshall Shepherd
Professor and Director of the University of Georgia Atmospheric Sciences Program, Dr. Shepherd is a leading international expert in weather and climate and a past President of the American Meteorological Society. Dr. Shepherd is also the host of The Weather Channel’s award-winning show: Weather Geeks, a pioneering Sunday talk podcast/show and a contributor to Forbes magazine. He has won many prestigious awards for his research and public engagement, including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the American Geophysical Union Climate Communication Prize, the American Meteorological Society’s Brooks and Helmut Landsberg awards and the Association of American Geographers Media Achievement Award—to name a few. He was recently inducted into the National Academy of Engineering. His presentation for the Brazel lecture focused on the role that cities play in affecting precipitation events.
2019 (Nov. 7): Dev Niyogi
Dr. Dev Niyogi, Professor of Agronomy, Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at Purdue University. Dr. Niyogi is the Chair of the American Meteorological Society’s Board on the Urban Environment and is also a member of the advisory board of the International Association for Urban Climate. He is also the outgoing State Climatologist for the state of Indiana. His research spans a number of urban climate related fields, including urban influences on precipitation and drivers of urban expansion. He has over 150 peer-reviewed publications for his highly interdiscipinary and international research. His presentation for the Brazel Lecture explored integrating emerging technologies from video gaming and machine learning in the design of future climate-resilient cities.
2018 (Feb. 8): Sue Grimmond
Dr. Sue Grimmond, Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, at the University of Reading, in the UK is past president of the International Association of Urban Climate and past lead expert for the World Meteorological Organization on Urban and Building Climatology. She is on editorial boards of multiple key journals in our field. In 2006, she was elected Fellow of the American Meteorological Society. She has numerous additional awards, with 2009 being a particularly banner year for her in which she received both the Helmut E. Landsberg Award from the American Meteorological Society and the Luke Howard Award from the International Association for Urban Climate. Her presentation discussed the role and potential for integrated services for weather and climate in the urban environment.