Our Team
Describe your team here.
Susannah Smetana Kagan is the science to policy director for the Urban Climate Change Research Network. Previously, she practiced environmental law with Seyfarth Shaw. Smetana Kagan serves as a member of The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) North America Cabinet and its Trustee Climate Council and previously was a trustee and chair of TNC’s New York Board. She also served as a member of the boards of the Perfect Earth Project and the School of American Ballet.
Smetana Kagan graduated from Trinity, where she was a President’s Fellow and earned a B.A. with honors in philosophy. She also holds a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and an M.P.A. with a concentration on environmental policy and sustainability management from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.
Maria Dombrov a Senior Staff Associate at the Climate Impacts Group, co-located at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University's Center for Climate Systems Research. Maria’s work focuses on understanding the implications that climate change and extreme events present to cities and their metropolitan regions around the world. She is also a Principal Editor and Project Manager of UCCRN’s Third Assessment Report on Climate Change and Cities (ARC3.3). Maria has an M.A. from Columbia University in Climate and Society with a concentration on scientific communications and a B.S. from Syracuse University in Biology. She is currently pursuing an Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) degree at Columbia Business School.
Dr. Solecki is a leading scholar of urban climate resilience whose work examines how cities respond to environmental change and navigate adaptation transitions. He is a Professor of Geography at Hunter College, City University of New York. A central contributor to climate research in the New York–New Jersey region, Dr. Solecki has co-led multiple regional climate impacts assessments and has played a long-standing role in the New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC). Internationally, he served as a Lead Author for the IPCC Working Group II Urban Areas chapter and as Coordinating Lead Author of the U.S. National Climate Assessment chapter on Urbanization, Infrastructure, and Vulnerability. Dr. Solecki holds a BA in Geography from Columbia University and an MA and PhD in Geography from Rutgers University.
Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig is co-director of the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN) and co-editor of the UCCRN Assessment Reports on Climate Change and Cities. She is a Senior Research Scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and an Adjunct Senior Research Scientist at the Columbia Climate School. She is also a Professor in the Department of Environmental Science at Barnard College. At NASA GISS, she heads the Climate Impacts Group whose mission is to investigate the interactions of climate (both variability and change) on systems and sectors important to human well-being. She was co-chair of the New York City Panel on Climate Change and co-led the Metropolitan East Coast Regional Assessment of the U.S. National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change.