RCEI Advisory Board

Clinton Andrews

Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy

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Dr. Clint Andrews performs research on climate change mitigation and adaptation. His mitigation work focuses on buildings and energy, including occupant behavior, adoption of innovations, design tradeoffs, and policy analysis. His adaptation work focuses on how real estate markets and local governments respond to changing coastal hazards, and how urban residents cope with increasing heat stress.

Debashish Bhattacharya

Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources
Biochemistry and Microbiology

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The Bhattacharya lab works with algal primary producers and seaweeds to advance green energy and bioproduct generation. The group also studies coral biology and evolution using genomics and other high-throughput methods to design engineering solutions to monitoring coral health and stress to aid reef conservation and resilience, on a worldwide scale.

Josh Kohut

Marine and Coastal Sciences

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Dr. Josh Kohut earned a B.S. in physics from the College of Charleston and a Ph.D. in physical oceanography from Rutgers University. Josh is currently a professor in the department of marine and coastal sciences at Rutgers University. Using networks of ocean observing technologies, his research and extension programs focus on the ocean processes that structure marine ecosystems. He is involved in many research programs that range in scope from storm intensity, offshore wind, and local water quality monitoring off the NJ coast; regional fisheries along the US east coast; and environmental studies of polar ecosystems in the coastal waters surrounding Antarctica.

Dunbar Birnie

Materials Science and Engineering

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Dr. Birnie's group concentrates on solar power technology and battery storage for enhancing renewable energy adoption. Recent work has emphasized the combination of photovoltaic arrays with large-scale agricultural production and land-use issues. This area of "Agrivoltaics" is of increasing importance as NJ aims to meet it's Energy Master Plan goals.

Anthony Broccoli

Environmental Sciences

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Dr. Broccoli studies changes in climate, both past and future, with a goal of better understanding the mechanisms responsible for such changes. He uses numerical models of the climate system in his research, carefully comparing their results with evidence from the climate record.

Robin Leichenko

Geography

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Dr. Robin Leichenko is Professor of Geography and Dean of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Rutgers University. Robin is former and founding Co-Director of the Rutgers Climate Institute. Her current research explores the economic and equity impacts of climate change with a focus on the northeastern United States. Her latest book, Climate and Society: Transforming the Future (with Karen O’Brien) was published by Polity Press in 2019. A second edition of the book will be coming out in 2024.

Lucas Marxen

Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy

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Lucas Marxen is Executive Director of the Environmental Analysis and Communications Group at the Rutgers University Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy and Co-Director of the New Jersey Climate Change Resource Center, a statutorily established and academically housed service center providing support to communities, state and local decision-makers and the private sector to advance equitable and science-informed climate change solutions. Lucas leads a talented research team with expertise in planning, policy, data analysis, and public informatics development. Lucas leads applied research projects focused on supporting state and local planning and policy making across various aspects of climate change, environmental policy, and resource development/management. He manages a team leading the development of digital informatics systems that combine computer science and data visualization techniques into platforms that bring research and data to a broad set of stakeholders to support decision-making across a diverse range of subject and research areas.

Angela Oberg

Office of Climate Action

Human Ecology

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Angela Oberg is the Associate Director of the Rutgers Office of Climate Action where she brings together the diverse knowledge, experience, and passions of Rutgers’ many stakeholders in service their shared climate goals. By training and practice, Angie is an urban environmental planner working to make cities more livable and sustainable. Her work investigates how the everyday lives of urban residents shape, and are shaped by, urban political ecologies. In particular, her scholarly work focuses on the urban political ecology of sewage.

Oscar Schofield

Marine & Coastal Sciences

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Dr. Schofield is an oceanographer interested how the physics and chemistry regulates ocean ecosystems, with a primary research focus on the physiology and ecology of phytoplankton. His research is conducted in a range of oceans from the rapidly warming/melting along the West Antarctic Peninsula to sustained studies along the northeast United States. Additionally he is part of the Center of Ocean Observing Leadership (COOL), which is focused on developing new technologies and ocean sensor networks to better document and model the marine system.

Rachael Shwom

Human Ecology

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Dr. Rachael Shwom is full professor in the School of Environmental and Biological Science’s Department of Human Ecology and Chair of the Department of Human Ecology. She conducts research that links sociology, psychology, engineering, economics, and public policy to investigate how social and political factors influence society’s responses to energy and climate problems. Rachael is currently PI on a collaborative National Science Foundation Grant “Responses to complex disruptive events: Cognition in a socio-political context.“ She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee to Advise the U.S. Global Change Research Program and a co-author to the National Climate Assessment’s Chapter 5 (Human and Social Systems).

Jacqueline Thaw

Mason Gross School of the Arts

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Jacqueline Thaw is a graphic designer with a focus on visual identity and publication design. She was a staff designer at I.D. Magazine, Parham Santana, and Pentagram. Her work has been recognized by the AIGA, Art Directors Club, Type Directors Club, and the Society for Environmental Graphic Design. She is a member of the design collective Class Action.

Wade Trappe

School of Engineering

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Wade Trappe is the Associate Dean for Research and Development and a Professor at the School of Engineering. Trappe received his B.A. in mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin in 1994 and his Ph.D. in applied mathematics and computational science from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 2002. Trappe was an editor for IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, IEEE Signal Processing Magazine and IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing and was the SPS' representative to the IEEE Signal Processing Society's governing board of IEEE TMC. He was named Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2014 "for contributions to information and communication security".

James Wright

Earth and Planetary Sciences

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Dr. Wright's research interests lie in understanding how past ocean circulation changes influenced climates over a variety of time scales, for decades to millions of years. His primary research tool is the analysis of stable oxygen and carbon isotopes in marine organisms, which record the history of sea surface temperature variations, ice volume changes, and reorganization of surface and deep-water circulation patterns.