Daniel P. Schrag

Schrag is the Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology, Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering at Harvard University, and Director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment.  He also co-directs the Program on Science, Technology and Public Policy at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School.  Dan’s interests include climate change, energy technology, energy policy, and digital technology policy.  He has studied climate change over the broadest range of Earth’s history, including how climate change and the chemical evolution of the atmosphere influenced the evolution of life in the past, and what steps might be taken to prepare for impacts of climate change in the future. His work helped constrain the temperature of the deep ocean during the last glacial maximum; he worked with colleague Paul Hoffman on developing the Snowball Earth hypothesis - that the Earth was episodically frozen to the equator; and he has studied climate variability from sampling corals from around the world.  He is currently working on understanding how tropical ocean dynamics relates to decadal climate variability and climate prediction, and also developing a theory for what controls atmospheric oxygen throughout Earth history.  From 2009 to 2017, he served on President Obama’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology (PCAST), contributing to many reports to the President on a variety of topics including energy technology and national energy policy, agricultural preparedness, climate change, big data and privacy, the use of forensic science in criminal justice, and STEM education.  He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with his wife, Diane, his two children, Orion and Rosie, and his Chinook dog, Mickey.