Galen McKinley
Senior Fellow 2023–2024

Galen McKinley is professor of earth and environmental sciences at Columbia University and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. She uses simulations and machine learning to study the ocean carbon cycle and its role in climate. As a science communicator, Galen’s goal is to highlight the ocean’s critical role in climate and, more broadly, to elucidate the myriad unseen connections between people and the environment on our limited Earth.

Galen holds a bachelor of science in Civil Engineering from Rice University and a PhD in Climate Physics and Chemistry from MIT. From 2004 to 2017, she was on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She teaches courses on climate and climate change, carbon cycling, atmosphere and ocean dynamics, and dynamical modeling.