Robert Kopp is a climate scientist who serves at Rutgers University as a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences, where he directs the Earth System Science & Policy Lab. Professor Kopp’s research focuses on past and future sea-level change, the interactions between physical climate change and the economy, the use of climate risk information to inform decision-making, and the role of higher education in supporting societal climate risk management.
He directs the Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub, a Rutgers-led consortium that advances coastal climate adaptation and the scientific understanding of natural and human coastal climate dynamics. He is a founding principal investigator of the Climate Impact Lab, a multi-institutional collaboration advancing data-driven approaches to estimating the social and human costs of climate change. He is also co-lead for engagement and applications for the NASA Sea-Level Change Team. He is a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recent (2021) Sixth Assessment Report and its ongoing Seventh Assessment Report.
He has previously served at Rutgers as Director of the Rutgers Institute of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences and as Founding Co-Director of the University Office of Climate Action. Professor Kopp received his Ph.D. in Geobiology from the California Institute of Technology and his undergraduate degree in Geophysical Sciences from the University of Chicago. He is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a 2024 Guggenheim Fellow, and a recipient of the AGU Ambassador Award.