Timon McPhearson on Anthropocene Climate Risks and Resilience in Cities

The Center for Urban Science + Progress (CUSP) at NYU Tandon welcomes you to attend the lecture "Anthropocene climate risks and resilience in cities" by Timon McPhearson, founding director of the Urban Systems Lab, professor of urban ecology at The New School, and lead editor for Nature-based Solutions for Cities. This event is hosted as part of CUSP's Spring 2025 Urban Science Research Seminar Series.

About the Lecture

Anthropocene climate risks and resilience in cities

Cities concentrate people, economic activity, and infrastructure creating vulnerability and risk to climate fueled extreme weather events. With climate change continuing to accelerate, and impacts on cities likely to accelerate as well, building resilience to an Anthropocene climate will require aggressive upscaling in adaptation solutions. What scientific information do cities need to effectively prioritize adaptation and resilience solutions to protect residents, critical infrastructure, and their economies? New York City (NYC) will provide a case study in how co-producing actionable climate science with decision-makers can improve data driven approaches to protect vulnerable residents and build resilience to an increasingly uncertain future. Results from the NYC Panel on Climate Change 4th Assessment Report and the recent NYC Vulnerability, Impacts, and Adaptation Study will serve as a backdrop to examine how scenario modeling and vulnerability assessment can advance more equitable resilience planning and response. Beyond NYC, how can we scale up climate risk information for less resourced cities to have access to similar actionable and cutting-edge science to prioritize investments and develop resilience plans? ClimateIQ, a new climate AI tool in development, will be presented that seeks to advance climate and data science using multiple forms of machine learning to scale operational climate risk data for urban areas across multiple climate hazards.

About the Speaker

Dr. Timon McPhearson is the founding director of the Urban Systems Lab, professor of urban ecology at The New School, and lead editor for Nature-based Solutions for Cities. His work takes an interdisciplinary systems approach to advancing urban resilience, equity, and sustainability earning the Ecological Society of America’s Sustainability Science Award twice as well as the Innovation in Sustainability Science Award. Dr. McPhearson was named an NYC Climate Hero and was awarded the Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity as a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Stockholm Resilience Centre, and the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics at The Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences. He currently serves as co-chair of the NYC Panel on Climate Change. His books including Urban Planet (2018) and Resilient Urban Futures (2021) are widely read (over 300,000 downloads). He advises NGOs, corporations, and policymakers on urban climate risk and resilience, has spoken to audiences at Harvard, MIT, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and Cornell among other universities, and his research is extensively covered including in The New York Times, The Guardian, Science Friday, NBC, PBS Newshour, Voice of America, and more.

Visitor Information

This lecture will take place in Room 1201 at 370 Jay St. Please visit our website for directions and a campus map. Advance registration through Eventbrite is required for campus access at NYU for external guests.

About the Urban Science Research Seminar Series

The Center for Urban Science + Progress’s annual Research Seminar series features leading voices in the growing field of urban informatics examining real-world challenges facing cities and urban environments around the world. The Spring 2025 series is organized by Assistant Professors Takahiro Yabe, Qi Sun, and Graham Dove.

Host or Publisher NYU Center for Urban Science + Progress