The E&EM program introduced a new course in the fall 2009 semester on Climate Change: Policy, Impacts and Response. Taught by internationally recognized climate change expert Dr. Rachael Jonassen, the course covered climate change science, impacts, mitigation, adaptation, national programs for addressing climate change and international issues.
Dr. Jonassen was a lead author of the Strategic Plan for the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and the recently released A Federal Leader’s Guide to Climate Change (2009). Dr. Jonassen leads the climate change practice at LMI, a not-for-profit government consulting firm. She formerly was Program Director at the National Science Foundation, leading research into the carbon cycle as part of the U.S. Global Change Research Program.
Dr. Jonassen also served on the interagency working group for carbon cycle, where she helped manage the first State of the Carbon Cycle Report, led the effort at international cooperation on bilateral climate change agreements, and organized the first all-investigators meeting on the carbon cycle. Before that, she maintained a major research program on local impacts of climate change for twenty-five years as a professor of geology at Kent State University.
