Dr. Jason E. Smerdon is a climate researcher and Professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University. He also holds appointments at Columbia University as an Earth Institute Faculty Member and as Co-Director of the Undergraduate Program in Sustainable Development. His research focuses on climate variability and change during the past several millennia and how past climates can help us understand future climate change. Smerdon teaches courses on climate, environmental change and sustainable development. He also speaks and makes media appearances on the subject of climate change and its social dimensions. Smerdon's work published papers on paleoclimate reconstruction techniques, the dynamics of past climate change and variability, and on assessing climate model simulations of the past and future using paleoclimatic information. His first book (co-authored with Ed Mathez), the textbook "Climate Change: The Science of Global Warming and Our Energy Future," was published in 2018. Smerdon received his B.A. in Physics from Gustavus Adolphus College and his Ph.D. in Applied Physics from the University of Michigan.