Joerg M. Schaefer

Residency: Columbia Global Center Santiago

Research: The Santiago Water Crisis

Joerg Schaefer is a Lamont Research Professor, founding director of Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory’s Cosmogenic Nuclide Group, faculty member of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (DEES), and the Director of Undergraduate Studies for DEES as well as the Columbia Climate School. His key interests include how glaciers and ice sheets respond to past and modern warming, how changing ice impact environment and society and how science can assist in developing solution strategies for these climate-related challenges.

Schaefer is a climate geochemist and founded the Lamont Cosmogenic Nuclide Laboratory in 2004. His research group has become a world-leader in climate and glacier change science, applying cosmogenic isotope techniques to evaluate the response of ice on the Earth’s continents to past, modern and future warming. Schaefer’s focus is to understand, and better predict, the accelerating changes of polar ice-sheets and mountain glaciers in past, present and future. Most recently, Schaefer has been awarded the Columbia Global Scholar-in-Residence grant, and will work at Columbia Global Center Santiago in spring 2025 on the complex and urgent problem of "The Santiago Water Crisis," that is driven by environmental and climate change.

Schaefer loves to teach science, and has lead the development of the the first Climate Science Majors at Columbia. Schaefer is actively engaged in justice, equity, diversity and inclusion efforts in U.S. geosciences, as well as in anti-harassment and anti-bullying campaigns within the U.S. science community.