Dr. Nir Krakauer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at The City College of New York (CUNY). His research focuses on the Earth’s water and carbon cycles, with particular emphasis on the impacts of global warming and human activity. He integrates satellite observations, climate modeling, and machine learning to monitor droughts, floods, and water resources, and to improve seasonal and long-term forecasting. He is affiliated with NOAA-CESSRST, where he served as Acting Distinguished Research Scientist, and collaborates with NASA-GISS scientists to study how soil moisture, groundwater, and vegetation influence weather and climate systems.
Dr. Krakauer has led several applied research projects, including a NASA-funded study with the NYC Department of Environmental Protection to better understand the water budget of New York City’s watershed system and improve drought forecasting in a changing climate. His international work includes mapping climate hazards and supporting climate adaptation for smallholder farmers in Nepal, funded by USAID, and enhancing seasonal climate prediction through dynamic modeling and information theory, supported by NOAA’s Climate Program Office.
He serves on the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Committee on Adaptation to a Changing Climate and has participated in the NOAA MAPP Climate Prediction Task Force. He has also contributed to national conversations on climate resilience through his work with the American Solar Energy Society.
Dr. Krakauer currently serves as an editor or reviewer for several academic journals, including Scientific Reports, PLOS ONE, Climate, Land, Open Geosciences, Frontiers in Environmental Science, and Advances in Civil Engineering. He has edited special issues on topics such as Mediterranean climate, heatwaves, and geostatistics.
He earned his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology, where his research focused on carbon dioxide distribution and isotopes in the atmosphere and ocean, as well as the effects of climate change on forests and ocean circulation. He was a NOAA Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked on the Keck Hydrowatch Project to study forest water flows using sensor networks.