AMES, Iowa — An atmospheric scientist and climate change evangelist who is also a conservative Christian will speak at Iowa State University Wednesday, April 22.
Katharine Hayhoe will present "Climate Urgency and How Iowa Farmers and Businesses Can Take the Lead" at 7 p.m. in the Memorial Union Great Hall. Her talk is free and open to the public.
Hayhoe directs the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University and is founder and CEO of ATMOS Research, a climate change consultancy. Her research focuses on developing and applying high-resolution climate projections to evaluate the future impacts of climate change on society and the environment.
She also is a science adviser to Showtime's Emmy award-winning documentary series "The Years of Living Dangerously," which featured her work in the first episode. In 2014, Time magazine named Hayhoe one of the 100 most influential people of the year. Writing about Hayhoe for the Time article, actor Don Cheadle (who worked with her on the documentary series) said, "As a climate change evangelist, Katharine believes her religious faith obligates her to spread the word about climate change."
Hayhoe has authored more than 100 research publications and served as lead author on key reports for the U.S. Global Change Research Program and the National Academy of Sciences. With her husband Andrew Farley, a professor of applied linguistics and a pastor, she wrote "A Climate for Change: Global Warming Facts for Faith-Based Decisions."
She is a scientific adviser to Citizen's Climate Lobby, EcoAmerica, the Energy and Enterprise Initiative and the Evangelical Environmental Network. Her work has also been featured on the PBS documentary "The Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers." Hayhoe earned master's and doctoral degrees in atmospheric sciences from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Hayhoe's presentation is co-sponsored by ISU's climate science program, the National Science Foundation Iowa Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) and the Committee on Lectures, which is funded by Student Government.
More information on ISU lectures is available at http://www.lectures.iastate.edu, or by calling 515-294-9935.