Biography

Stephen H. Schneider is a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, a Senior Fellow at the Center for Environment Science and Policy of the Institute for International Studies, and Professor by Courtesy in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University since September, 1992.

He was honored in 1992 with a MacArthur Fellowship for his ability to integrate and interpret the results of global climate research through public lectures, seminars, classroom teaching, environmental assessment committees, media appearances, Congressional testimony, and research collaboration with colleagues. He has served as a consultant to Federal Agencies and/or White House staff in the Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton and Bush Jr. administrations. He also received, in 1991, the American Association for the Advancement of Science/ Westinghouse Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology, for furthering public understanding of environmental science and its implications for public policy. In 1998 he became a foreign member of the Academia Europaea, Earth and Cosmic Sciences Section. He was elected Chair of the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Section on Atmospheric and Hydrospheric Sciences (1999-2001). Schneider was elected to membership in the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in April 2002.

Schneider received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and Plasma Physics from Columbia University in 1971. He studied the role of greenhouse gases and suspended particulate material on climate as a postdoctoral fellow at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. He was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in 1972 and was a member of the scientific staff of NCAR from 1973 - 1996, where he co-founded the Climate Project. In 1975, he founded the interdisciplinary journal, Climatic Change, and continues to serve as its Editor. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Climate and Weather and author of The Genesis Strategy: Climate and Global Survival; The Coevolution of Climate and Life; Global Warming: Are We Entering the Greenhouse Century? and Laboratory Earth: The Planetary Gamble We Can't Afford to Lose, among others. He has authored or co-authored over 450 scientific papers, proceedings, legislative testimonies, edited books and book chapters; some 140 book reviews, editorials, published newspaper and magazine interviews and popularizations. He is a frequent contributor to commercial and noncommercial print and broadcast media on climate and environmental issues, e.g., NOVA, Planet Earth, Nightline, Today Show, Tonight Show, Good Morning America, Dateline, Discovery Channel, British, Canadian and Australian Broadcasting Corporations, among many others. At Stanford University he teaches classes in a dozen different departments and courses in Earth Systems, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Biological Sciences, Human Biology, the Interdisclipinary Program in Environment and Resources, and a Senior Honors Seminar in Environmental Science, Technology and Policy.

Schneider's current global change research interests include: climatic change; global warming; food/climate and other environmental/science public policy issues; ecological and economic implications of climatic change; integrated assessment of global change; climatic modeling of paleoclimates and of human impacts on climate, e.g., carbon dioxide "greenhouse effect" or environmental consequences of nuclear war. He is also interested in advancing public understanding of science and in improving formal environmental education in primary and secondary schools. He was a Coordinating Lead Author in Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Program) from 1997-2001, and was a Lead Author in Working Group I from 1994-1996. He was also a lead author of the IPCC guidance paper on uncertainties. He is currently a co-anchor of the Key Vulnerabilities (including Article 2) Cross-Cutting Theme for the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the IPCC.

Professor Schneider is Co-Director of the Center for Environmental Science and Policy (CESP) and Co-Director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (IPER).