Sustainability Science with Art Lerner-Lam, Ph.D.

Hosted by Columbia University School of Professional Studies Dean, Jason Wingard, Talks@Columbia and the Learn For Life podcast presents timely thought leadership on crucial issues facing academia and industry today. Arthur (Art) Lerner-Lam is the Academic Director for the M.S. in Sustainability Science Program. https://www.science.ei.columbia.edu/ Art is also a Lamont Research Professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory a seismologist who has studied and published on the interactions between crust and mantle, the thickness of tectonic plates, the structure of mountain belts and crustal rifts, and active seismicity. He has led scientific expeditions in the Middle East, Europe, Central and South Asia, the Southwest Pacific, and throughout the United States. Over the last 20 years, he has lectured and written widely on natural hazards and society. Lerner-Lam and his colleagues and students have supported the activities of the United Nations, the World Bank, and other international institutions promoting sustainable development in the face of extreme natural hazards. In addition to being an instructor for Columbia University's Sustainability Science M.S. program, Lerner-Lam also teaches course in the M.S. Sustainability Management, and Environmental Science & Policy programs. With colleagues from political science, economics, and international affairs, Lerner-Lam also has developed related curricula on sustainability management and sustainable investing suited for intensive executive education certificate programs. Lerner-Lam has held Post-doctoral positions at Scripps and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has been at Lamont-Doherty since 1985. He has been on numerous scientific advisory committees and editorial boards including as a member of the Federal Scientific Earthquake Studies Advisory Committee for the U.S. Geological Survey, as a consultant to the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, and as a contributing author to the U.N.’s Global Risk Update. He has consulted on environmental and natural hazard resilience for the governments of Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Chile, India, China, Thailand, Turkey, and Venezuela. He has also testified before the U.S. Congress on the nation’s preparedness for natural disasters.