Robert Kopp

Robert Kopp is an interdisciplinary climate scientist who serves at Rutgers University as a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences. He directs the Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub, a National Science Foundation-funded consortium that advances coastal climate adaptation and the scientific understanding of natural and human coastal climate dynamics. He is also a director of the Climate Impact Lab, a non-profit research organization supporting data-driven approaches to estimating the social and human costs of climate change. Professor Kopp’s research focuses on past and future sea-level change, the interactions between physical climate change and the economy, the use of climate risk information to inform decision-making, and the role of higher education in supporting societal climate risk management. He has authored over 150 scientific papers and is a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent (2021-2023) Sixth Assessment Report. Professor Kopp received his Ph.D. in Geobiology from the California Institute of Technology and his undergraduate degree in Geophysical Sciences from the University of Chicago. He is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.