Dr. Kimberley R. Miner is a Scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California, where she looks at Arctic change as part of a joint NASA-ESA initiative. She is a graduate of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (MPA) and the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute (Ph.D.). At the University of Maine, she continues her work as a Research Assistant Professor focusing on global risks from climate change. In this capacity, she managed pollution research on the 2019 National Geographic trip to Mt. Everest.

She is a Fellow at the Center for Climate and Security and Co-chair of the NASA HQ Interagency Forum on Climate Risks, Impacts, and Adaptation. During her Doctoral research, Kimberley worked with multi-national teams in Canada, Switzerland, and Alaska to develop the first risk assessment of glacial meltwater pollution. For this research, she was awarded a Fulbright scholarship and fellowships from the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, and the Switzer Foundation. Before her Ph.D., Kimberley worked at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the NYC Office of Emergency Management.

At both institutions, she created platforms for scientists and emergency managers to engage with the public after Hurricane Sandy. Based on this work, she joined the 2014-2015 NSF research trip to Antarctica, where she traveled by boat from Chile to Palmer Station. Kimberley is a Black belt, certified Wilderness Firefighter and First Responder, and mom to a lively cattledog.