Dr. James E. Hansen

 Chief
NASA Institute for Space Studies
E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation: National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies
2880 Broadway
New York, NY 10025 USA

Dr. James Hansen heads the NASA Institute for Space Studies in New York City, which is a division of Goddard Space Flight Center's (Greenbelt, MD),
Sciences and Exploration Directorate, and he is an Adjunct Professor of Geology at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. He was trained in physics and astronomy in the space science program of Dr. James Van Allen at the University of Iowa. His early research on the properties of clouds of Venus led to their identification as sulfuric acid. Since the late 1970s, he has worked on studies and computer simulations of the Earth's climate, for the purpose of understanding the human impact on global climate. Dr. Hansen 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. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1995 and, in 2001, received both the Heinz Award for environment as well as the American Geophysical Union's Roger Revelle Medal.  Dr. Hansen received the World Wildlife Federation’s Conservation Medal from the Duke of Edinburgh in 2006.

In 1963, Dr. Hansen received his bachelor's of arts degree with highest distinction in physics and mathematics from the University of Iowa. He participated in the NASA Graduate Traineeship from 1963-1966, and received a masters of science degree in astronomy from the University of Iowa in 1965. Dr. Hansen was a visiting student, at the Institute of Astrophysics, University of Kyoto and Dept. of Astronomy, Tokyo University, Japan from 1965-1966.  He received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Iowa in 1967.  Except for 1969, when he was an NSF post-dotoral scientist at Leiden Observatory under Prof. H.C. van de Hulst, he has spent his post-doctoral career at NASA GISS.

Curriculum Vitae

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