Dr. Arthur Lerner-Lam

BIOGRAPHY:

A seismologist, Arthur Lerner-Lam has led scientific expeditions in the Middle East, Europe, Central and South Asia, the Southwest Pacific, and throughout the United States. Over the last 20 years, he has lectured and written widely on natural hazard risk identification, assessment and management. At Columbia, Lerner-Lam directs the masters programs in sustainability science and environmental science and policy. These programs provide a broad and quantitative understanding of the environment, including Earth’s climate, and foster critical thinking about the public policies and private sector management principles needed for resiliency and sustainability. With colleagues from political science, economics and international affairs, Lerner-Lam also has developed related curricula on sustainability management and sustainable investing suited for intensive executive education certificate programs. Lerner-Lam received his undergraduate degree in geological sciences from Princeton University, and his doctorate in geophysical sciences from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. He has held Post-doctoral positions at Scripps and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has been at Lamont-Doherty since 1985. He has been on numerous scientific advisory committees and editorial boards including as a member on the Federal Scientific Earthquake Studies Advisory Committee for the U.S. Geological Survey, as a consultant to the U.S. Trade and Development Agency and as a contributing author to the U.N.’s Global Risk Update and the World Bank’s Global Hotspots Report. He has consulted on environmental and natural hazard resilience for the governments of Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Chile, India, China, Thailand, Turkey and Venezuela. He has testified before the U.S. Congress on the Nation’s preparedness for natural disasters.