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Stephen E. Zebiak

Faculty Affiliate, Sustainability Science; Director of the Climate Services Initiative, International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI)

Dr. Stephen (Steve) E. Zebiak is Director of the Climate Services Partnership, an informal international platform to advance knowledge, tools, and capacities in the delivery of science-based climate services to inform practical decision and policy making.

Previously, Zebiak was director-general of the IRI, leading an inter-disciplinary team of more than 40 scientists specializing in climate prediction, agriculture, health, water, economics and development policy. Zebiak has worked in the area of ocean-atmosphere interaction and climate variability since completing his PhD. He and Mark Cane authored the first dynamical model used to predict El Niño successfully. He has published extensively in journals such as ScienceNature, and the International Journal of Climatology, and has served as an advisor to a range of US and international climate science research programs. He is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society.

Education

  • P.h.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology