Bill Moomaw ’59 hosts a conversation with Honorary Degree recipients Gina McCarthy and Gavin A. Schmidt. Gina McCarthy is a leading advocate for common-sense strategies to protect public health and the environment. She was appointed by President Obama to serve as administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2013, after having served in his first term as the agency’s assistant administrator in the Office of Air and Radiation. From 2004–2009 McCarthy served as the commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection after having worked for five years in Massachusetts as undersecretary in the Office of Commonwealth Development and the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs. During her more than 30-year career, she has worked at all levels of government to take action on critical issues and coordinate policies on economic growth, energy, transportation and the environment. Gavin A. Schmidt is a climate scientist based at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City. He serves as both director of GISS and as principal investigator for the GISS ModelE Earth System Model, where his scientific research centers on understanding what drives variability in the climate system. He uses large-scale models of the atmosphere and ocean to simulate past and future climate conditions, working to understand past, present and future climate as well as the impacts of multiple drivers of climate change, including solar irradiance, atmospheric chemistry, aerosols and greenhouse gases. In 2011, he was named EarthSky Science Communicator of the Year and was awarded the inaugural American Geophysical Union (AGU) Climate Communication Prize. He gave the keynote lecture at AGU in 2013.

Be the first to comment