Robert Howarth is an Earth systems scientist and ecosystem biologist. He earned a Ph.D. jointly from MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and continues to be an adjunct scientist in Woods Hole. Dr. Howarth joined the Cornell faculty in 1985 and became the endowed David R. Atkinson Professor in 1993. He works broadly at the interface of science and policy, with research on both the causes and consequences of global climate disruption. Dr. Howarth is one of the 100 most-cited environmental scientists in the world, with his more than 200 papers cited more than 70,000 times in other peer-reviewed articles.
Dr. Howarth published the first paper on how methane emissions make shale gas from fracking an unacceptable fuel from the standpoint of climate. This work, which literally changed the debate on methane and shale gas, led Time Magazine to name him as one of 50 “People Who Mattered” in their 2011 Person of the Year issue. Currently, Dr. Howarth is a member of NY’s Climate Action Council, the group charged by law to implement the state’s progressive climate legislation.