Expert profiles
For SDG #13
UNSW demonstrates expertise through people, centres and institutes and partnership.
Climate Change Research Centre
UNSW's Climate Change Research Centre (CCRC) is a multi-disciplinary research centre, administered within the School of BEES in the Faculty of Science. CCRC's research focus is in the key areas of Earth's climate, applying basic scientific principles to pressing questions on climate dynamics, global climate change, and extremes of weather and climate with the aims of pressuring climate action.
Earth and Sustainability Science Research Centre
The Earth and Sustainability Science Research Centre (ESSRC), formerly known as PANGEA, is a multidisciplinary research group that investigates the drivers and impacts of a changing Earth, advising policy and decision makers about creating a more sustainable future. ESSRC research aims to understand the range of natural variability of complex earth and biological systems, enhancing our capacity to discriminate natural cycles from recent human perturbations.
Defence Research Institute
The UNSW Defence Research Institute (DRI) focuses on first-class research to enhance Australia's security. Recognising climate action as a primary focus for Australia's security, DRI has a research focus on the root causes of climate warming, principally eliminating emissions much faster than proposed, rather than just the responding to the symptoms.
ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CLEx)
UNSW is a founding member of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CLEx), located on our main campus and directed by UNSW Professor Andy Pitman. CLEx exists to transform our understanding of events such as heatwaves, droughts and storms. It provides data, tools, advisory services and education for local, national and international governments, helping them to plan for climate change.
Professor Katrin Meissner
Professor Meissner is the Director of the Climate Change Research Centre. She is interested in abrupt climate change events, as well as thresholds and feedbacks in the climate system. She uses Earth System Climate Models in conjunction with paleoclimate records to improve our understanding of the basic mechanisms underlying climate variability and climate change, particularly in the context of terrestrial biogeochemical cycles and ocean circulation.
Professor Chris Turney
Professor Turney is the Director of the Earth and Sustainability Science Research Centre. He explores past climates and their relevance to future change. Working across the planet (from Antarctica to the tropics and up into the Arctic), he is developing new records of past climate that extend historical weather records over millennia.
Professor Steven Sherwood
Professor Sherwood is the Deputy Director of the Climate Change Research Centre. He studies how the various processes in the atmosphere conspire to establish climate, how these processes might be expected to control the way climate changes, and how the atmosphere will ultimately interact with the oceans and other components of Earth.
Associate Professor Melissa Hart
A/Prof. Hart is the Director of the Researcher Development Program at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes, and is also involved with the Climate Change Research Centre. Her research looks at the impact of cities on climate and climate on cities, and the meteorological controls on air pollution.
Professor Rose Amal
Professor Rose Amal is a UNSW Scientia Professor, a chemical engineer, leader of the Particles and Catalysis Research Group and was an ARC Laureate Fellow. Professor Amal is recognised as a pioneer and leading authority in the fields of fine particle technology, photocatalysis and functional nanomaterials having made significant contributions to these related areas of research over the past 15 years.
Professor Andy Pitman
Professor Pitman is the Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CLEx).
Professor David Sanderson
Professor Sanderson is the Inaugural Judith Neilson Chair in Architecture and has 30 years' experience working across the world in development and emergencies. In 2021 he led a project with Snowy Valley Councils and surrounding local communities affected by the extensive 2019/2020 bushfires, to help prepare for future fire and other climate change related disasters.
Associate Professor Bryce Kelly
Associate Professor Kelly has over 27 years of international lecturing, consulting and research experience in greenhouse gas measurements, hydrogeology, geology, and geostatistics. His current atmospheric research focuses on measuring methane emissions from coal seam gas, coal mining and agricultural sources. In 2021 he worked with the United Nations Environment Programme in a world-first aerial survey of coal seam gas emissions in Queensland.
