James Hansen

Dr James Hansen, formerly director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, is adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, where he directs a program in Climate Science, Awareness, and Solutions. His early research on the clouds of Venus helped identify their composition as sulfuric acid. Since the late 1970s, he has focused his research on Earth’s climate, especially human-made climate change. He is best known for his testimony on climate change to congressional committees in the 1980s that helped raise broad awareness of the global warming issue.