Departments - Prod > Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering > People > Core Faculty > Richard B Rood
Professor, Dow Sustainability Distinguished Faculty Fellow, Graduate advisor Program: Applied Climate, Concentration: Climate Impact Engineering
Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering
2525 Space Research Building
Climate & Space Research Building University of Michigan 2455 Hayward Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2143(734) 647-3530
Ph.D., Meteorology, Florida State University
M.S., Meteorology, Florida State University
B.S., Physics, University of North Carolina
I teach several courses on climate change and the interface of climate change with all aspects of society. The centerpiece course focuses on climate change problem solving, which is taught in concert with the School of Sustainability and Environment. The class has included business students, policy students, art students, as well as students from several science and engineering departments.
An outcome of my teaching is the development of a program in applied climate. I am the advisor of our Masters of Engineering in Applied Climate as well as our undergraduate program in Climate Impacts. This program is a bit different than some of the other programs I have seen in applied climate. We strive to integrate principles of social science and knowledge systems to help accelerate the graduate’s effectiveness in their profession. A goal is to contribute to the development of a new profession of climate interpreters or translators. It is something new, and students with entrepreneurial skills are defining the profession. Much of this work is done in concert with the Great Lakes Integrates Sciences and Assessments (GLISA) Center.
My primary research interests are on climate change problem solving. I collaborate with many researchers across the university – being the climate person. My focus is on undergraduate and Master’s use-driven research. I only take Ph.D. students if they come with their own funding. I am delighted that all of my previous Ph.D. students have gainful employment and have been successful.
I continue to contribute to research projects on numerical algorithms with my collaborations. I am also active as a consultant to NOAA on their modeling activities and the Next Generation Global Prediction System.
I believe that public engagement by scientists is important. I wrote blogs for Wunderground.com for a decade, and I am currently curating those blogs for a more formal book. I write occasional blogs for the America Meteorological Society’s Climatepolicy.org, as well as other on line platforms. A summary of my public engagement is at this link.
In 2016, with Andrew Gettelman, we published Demystifying Climate Models: A User’s Guide to Earth System Models. The electronic version is open access and can be downloaded here.
My Curriculum Vitae (CV) is linked above and is mostly complete and often current. I find it very difficult to say, “Go Blue.”