The Rutgers Climate and Energy Institute seeks to contribute to a resilient, equitable, and sustainable climate future. RCEI connects faculty, staff, and students through transformative climate change research, innovation, education, and outreach.

Rutgers Climate Symposium Highlights

Watch Highlights Below

RCEI Symposium 2025: The Blue Planet

On November 12, 2025, researchers, faculty, and student scholars from academic and research institutions across the Mid-Atlantic gathered for Rutgers' annual Climate Symposium, designed to foster collaboration among the climate change and energy research communities in our region. The 2025 theme, The Blue Planet, invited consideration of the role of the oceans in Earth's climate and the tightly connected ramifications of the climate crisis for the oceans.

Full event archive including recordings and abstracts available here.

Affiliate Research Highlight

One Size Fits All? Testing Coating Thickness for Solar Panels

Publication by Dunbar Birnie, RCEI Affiliate

In a world where solar power is becoming increasingly relevant and new solar panels are being manufactured in all sorts of configurations, a study co-authored by Dunbar Birnie investigates how the thickness of a special panel coating helps them catch sunlight – and discovers a perfect medium of thickness within which, no matter what type of panel, they all work best. This finding introduces potential for greater standardization in the solar industry, which could elevate its influence even further in industries around the globe.

RCEI Annual Impact Report

Rutgers Climate & Energy Institute 2024–2025 Annual Impact Report

Check out highlights from this year’s initiatives in research community building, research development support, early-career scholar development, and more!

View the Report

Download PDF

RCEI Affiliate News

UN Panel Selects Three RCEI Affiliates as Lead Authors on Next Global Climate Report

RCEI Affiliates Robert Kopp, Pamela McElwee, and Kevon Rhiney have been named lead authors for the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Seventh Assessment Report, the world’s most authoritative evaluation of climate change.

RCEI Affiliate News

Climate Experts’ Review U.S. DOE Climate Working Group Report

RCEI Affiliates Robert Kopp and Pamela McElwee co-authored – with Kopp also serving as Co-Editor – the Climate Experts’ Review of the DOE (Department of Energy) Climate Working Group Report, which found the DOE report’s key claims on extreme weather and carbon dioxide benefits to be “misleading or fundamentally incorrect.”

Now, more than ever, we need you.

Our work has never mattered more. We all understand the stakes. The Earth continues to warm, and human and ecological communities suffer from the impacts of a changing climate. The creativity, passion, and stubborn resolve RCEI affiliates and their students have for their climate change and renewable energy scholarship persevere.

Your contributions will support graduate students and early career scholars, research programs that develop real-world solutions, and building connections between the arts and sciences.

Support RCEI Today

Rutgers Climate Symposium Highlights

RCEI Symposium 2025: The Blue Planet

Full event archive including recordings and abstracts available here.

RCEI Annual Impact Report

Rutgers Climate & Energy Institute 2024–2025 Annual Impact Report

Check out highlights from this year’s initiatives in research community building, research development support, early-career scholar development, and more!

View the Report

RCEI Affiliate News

UN Panel Selects Three RCEI Affiliates as Lead Authors on Next Global Climate Report

RCEI Affiliates Robert Kopp, Pamela McElwee, and Kevon Rhiney have been named lead authors for the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Seventh Assessment Report, the world’s most authoritative evaluation of climate change.

Affiliate Research Highlight

One Size Fits All? Testing Coating Thickness for Solar Panels

Publication by Dunbar Birnie, RCEI Affiliate

In a world where solar power is becoming increasingly relevant and new solar panels are being manufactured in all sorts of configurations, a study co-authored by Dunbar Birnie investigates how the thickness of a special panel coating helps them catch sunlight – and discovers a perfect medium of thickness within which, no matter what type of panel, they all work best. This finding introduces potential for greater standardization in the solar industry, which could elevate its influence even further in industries around the globe.

RCEI Affiliate News

Climate Experts’ Review U.S. DOE Climate Working Group Report

RCEI Affiliates Robert Kopp and Pamela McElwee co-authored – with Kopp also serving as Co-Editor – the Climate Experts’ Review of the DOE (Department of Energy) Climate Working Group Report, which found the DOE report’s key claims on extreme weather and carbon dioxide benefits to be “misleading or fundamentally incorrect.”

Now, more than ever, we need you.

Our work has never mattered more. We all understand the stakes. The Earth continues to warm, and human and ecological communities suffer from the impacts of a changing climate. The creativity, passion, and stubborn resolve RCEI affiliates and their students have for their climate change and renewable energy scholarship persevere.

Your contributions will support graduate students and early career scholars, research programs that develop real-world solutions, and building connections between the arts and sciences.

Now, more than ever, we need you.

Support RCEI Today