Victoria University of Wellington is a public research university in Wellington, New Zealand. It was established in 1897 by Act of Parliament, and was a constituent college of the University of New Zealand.
The Earth Institute is a research institute at Columbia University created in 1995 for addressing complex issues facing the planet and its inhabitants, with a focus on sustainable development. With an interdisciplinary approach, this includes research in climate change, geology, global health, economics, management, agriculture, ecosystems, urbanization, energy, hazards, and water. The Earth Institute's activities are guided by the idea that science and technological tools that already exist could be applied to greatly improve conditions for the world's poor, while preserving the natural systems that support life on Earth.
The Royal Society Te Apārangi is a not-for-profit body in New Zealand providing funding and policy advice in the fields of sciences and the humanities. These fundings are provided on behalf of the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
Timothy Raymond Naish is a New Zealand glaciologist and climate scientist who has been a researcher and lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington and the Director of the Antarctic Research Centre, and in 2020 became a programme leader at the Antarctic Science Platform. Naish has researched and written about the possible effect of melting ice sheets in Antarctica on global sea levels due to high CO2 emissions causing warming in the Southern Ocean. He was instrumental in establishing and leading the Antarctica Drilling Project (ANDRILL), and a Lead Author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 5th Assessment Report (2014).
The climate of New Zealand is varied due to the country's diverse landscape. Most regions of New Zealand belong to the temperate zone with a maritime climate characterised by four distinct seasons. Winters are relatively mild and summers comparatively cool. The main contributing factors are the Pacific Ocean and latitude, although the mountain ranges can cause significant climate variations in locations barely tens of kilometres from each other. Conditions vary from extremely wet on the West Coast of the South Island to almost semi-arid in Central Otago and subtropical in Northland.
David Stuart Wratt is a New Zealand climate scientist who specialises in meteorology and the science and impact of climate change. He is an adjunct research fellow at the New Zealand Climate Change Research Institute at Victoria University of Wellington, and has had many roles at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), including six years as chief scientist (climate). His current position at NIWA is emeritus scientist (climate). Wratt is a Companion of the Royal Society of New Zealand and was the chair of the society's New Zealand Climate Committee. He has had advisory roles for the New Zealand Government, including science advisor at the Ministry for the Environment, and is currently a member of the Science Board for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. He has had input into assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), notably, contributing to its award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize through his contributions to the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. Wratt has worked in the United States and Australia as well as New Zealand.
Judith A. Curry is an American climatologist and former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research interests include hurricanes, remote sensing, atmospheric modeling, polar climates, air-sea interactions, climate models, and the use of unmanned aerial vehicles for atmospheric research. She was a member of the National Research Council's Climate Research Committee, published over a hundred scientific papers, and co-edited several major works. Curry retired from academia in 2017 at age 63, coinciding with her public climate change skepticism.
The contributions of women in climate change have received increasing attention in the early 21st century. Feedback from women and the issues faced by women have been described as "imperative" by the United Nations and "critical" by the Population Reference Bureau. A report by the World Health Organization concluded that incorporating gender-based analysis would "provide more effective climate change mitigation and adaptation."
Nancy Bertler is a German-New Zealand Antarctic researcher. She has led major initiatives to investigate climate history using Antarctic ice cores, and best known for her leadership of the Roosevelt Island Climate Evolution Programme (RICE). She is a full professor at the Antarctic Research Centre at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.
William Grant Guilford is a retired New Zealand academic, specialising in veterinary nutrition. He is currently Chair of the New Zealand Veterinary Association. He was previously Head of the Institute of Veterinary, Animal Sciences at Massey University, Dean of Science at the University of Auckland and Vice-Chancellor of Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington.
The Honourable Rosa Galvez is a Canadian Senator representing Québec (Bedford) and an expert in pollution and its effects on human health. She was appointed to the Senate on December 6, 2016.
Lisa Dilling is an interdisciplinary scholar who focuses on the energy transition, climate adaptation, decision making, the use of information, and science policy. She aims to improve the effectiveness of policies for climate change. Dilling is Associate Chief Scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, an environmental non-profit that works on climate change, clean air and public health, and supporting the ability of people and nature to thrive.
Shaun Cameron Hendy is a New Zealand physicist. He is the chief scientist at climate innovation company Toha. He was previously a professor at the University of Auckland and was the first director of Te Pūnaha Matatini, a centre of research excellence in complex systems and data analytics. During the COVID-19 pandemic in New Zealand, he led a team of scientists developing mathematical models of the spread of the virus across the country that influenced the government's response to the outbreak.
Ibrahim Omer is a New Zealand politician. He was a Member of Parliament for the Labour Party from 2020 to 2023.
Pauline Harris is a New Zealand academic, currently Associate Professor at Te Pūtahi a Toi School of Māori Knowledge at Massey University. She is a central figure in the incorporation of Mātauranga Māori with scientific research in New Zealand, through her roles as Deputy Director (Māori) with the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology and as Associate Vision Mātauranga Theme Leader with the Science for Technological Innovation National Science Challenge. In 2022 she was part of the Matariki Governance Board reporting to the Ministers of Māori Crown Relations, Workplace Relations and Safety, Culture and Heritage and the Prime Minister on the establishment of the Matariki holiday. She is also a leader in developing an Aerospace strategy in Aotearoa that integrates the aims and aspirations of Māori.
James Hall, is Professor of Climate and Environmental Risks in the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford., where he leads the Oxford Programme for Sustainable Infrastructure Systems. He is Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Engineering Science and Fellow of Linacre College. Hall is a member of the UK Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology, commissioner of the National Infrastructure Commission, and is President of the Institution of Civil Engineers for the year November 2024 to October 2025. He was appointed as a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2010. He was a member of the Adaptation Sub-Committee of the UK Climate Change Committee from 2009 to 2019, and was chair of the Science and Advisory Committee of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis from 2020 to 2022.
David Charles Lowe (born 1946) is a New Zealand atmospheric scientist who was instrumental in setting up the Baring Head atmospheric CO2 programme in 1972. A researcher and educator, Lowe was one of the lead authors of a 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report which was recognised with a Nobel Peace Prize.
Susanna Wood is a New Zealand scientist whose research focuses on understanding, protecting and restoring New Zealand's freshwater environments. One of her particular areas of expertise is the ecology, toxin production, and impacts of toxic freshwater cyanobacteria in lakes and rivers. Wood is active in advocating for the incorporation of DNA-based tools such as metabarcoding, genomics and metagenomics for characterising and understanding aquatic ecosystems and investigating the climate and anthropogenic drivers of water quality change in New Zealand lakes. She has consulted for government departments and regional authorities and co-leads a nationwide programme Lakes380 that aims to obtain an overview of the health of New Zealand's lakes using paleoenvironmental reconstructions. Wood is a senior scientist at the Cawthron Institute. She has represented New Zealand internationally in cycling.
Robert Murray McKay is a New Zealand paleoceanographer who specialises in sedimentology, stratigraphy and palaeoclimatology, specifically gathering geological evidence to study how marine-based portions of the Antarctic ice sheet behave in response to abrupt climate and oceanic change. He has been involved in examination of marine sedimentary records and glacial deposits to show melting and cooling in Antarctica over the past 65 million years and how this has influenced global sea levels and climate. This has helped climate change scientists overcome uncertainty about how the ice sheets will respond to global warming and how this can be managed effectively in the 21st century. He has participated in international projects including ANDRILL and the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP), led major New Zealand government-funded research teams and has received several awards in recognition of his work. Since 2023 McKay has been a full professor at Victoria University of Wellington and from 2019, director of the Antarctic Research Centre.
Ema Maria Bargh is a New Zealand academic, and is Professor of Politics and Māori Studies at Victoria University of Wellington.
