Biography

IN MEMORIAM: STEPHEN H. SCHNEIDER (1945-2010)

Our colleague and good friend Steve Schneider died on July 19, 2010, while traveling from a meeting in Sweden to London. Steve is survived by his wife, Woods Institute Senior Fellow Terry Root, his children, Adam Schneider and Rebecca Cherba and his grandson Nikolai.

Steve received his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and plasma physics from Columbia University in 1971. In 1975, he founded the interdisciplinary journal, "Climatic Change," and continued to serve as its Editor-in-Chief until his death. He was honored in 1992 with a MacArthur Fellowship for his ability to integrate and interpret the results of global climate research through public lectures, seminars, classroom teaching, environmental assessment committees, media appearances, Congressional testimonies and research collaboration with colleagues. He consulted with federal agencies and/or White House staff in the Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama administrations.

In 2002, Steve was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. The following year, he received the Edward T. Law Roe Award from the Society of Conservation Biology and was jointly awarded the National Conservation Achievement Award from the National Wildlife Federation with his wife and frequent collaborator, Terry Root. He has been an author for all four assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Program; was a coordinating lead author in IPCC Working Group 2 for the last two reports; and also served on the synthesis report writing teams. In 2000, he and Richard Moss co-authored the uncertainties guidance paper for IPCC authors. He was one of four "generations" of IPCC authors honored for their work when the IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President, Al Gore.

Steve's important recent work centered on communicating the risks of observed and possible impacts of climate change to ensure that decision makers were sufficiently informed to apply smart risk management strategies in climate policy decision making, given the uncertainties in future projections of global climate change. He served as an honest, credible adviser to decision makers and stakeholders in industry, government and nonprofit sectors on possible climate-related events and policy responses taking a more middle road approach that avoided the extremes of claiming that climate change is "the end of the world" or "good for you"-the two least likely among the spectrum of potential outcomes. He also tirelessly engaged in improving public understanding of science and environment and the risks of climate impacts through extensive media communication and public outreach.