Kim Cobb is the Director of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society at Brown University, and Professor in Environment and Society as well as Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences. As a climate scientist, she uses observations of past and present climate to advance our understanding of future climate change impacts, with a focus on climate extremes and coastal flooding. She received her B.A. from Yale University in biology and geology, and her Ph.D. in Oceanography from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. Prior to joining Brown in 2022, she served as Director of the Global Change Program at Georgia Tech, Professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, and ADVANCE Professor for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. In her research, Kim has sailed on oceanographic cruises to the remote central Pacific and led caving expeditions in the Borneo rainforests. She received a NSF CAREER Award, a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and the Hans Oeschger Medal from the European Geosciences Union in 2019. She was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2021, Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 2023, and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2025. She served as Lead Author for the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, released in 2021. In 2023, President Biden appointed her to the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, where she served until 2025. She was appointed to the Rhode Island Legislative Commission on Climate Change Impacts and Solutions in 2024. As a mother to four, Kim is a strong advocate for women in science, and champions diversity and inclusion in all that she does. She is also devoted to the communication of climate change to the public through media appearances, public speaking, and social media channels, and enjoys frequent exchanges with policymakers about climate impacts and solutions.
