Hanqin Tian

Director, International Center for Climate and Global Change Research, Auburn University
Dr. Hanqin Tian is Solon and Martha Dixon Professor, Founding Director of International Center for Climate and Global Change Research, and Leader for the interdisciplinary cluster of Climate-Human-Earth System Science (CHESS) at Auburn University. He received his BS from Zhejiang University in 1982, MS from Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in 1986, and Ph.D. from State University of New York, Syracuse in 1996. Prior to joining Auburn University, he had worked in MBL-Woods Hole, MIT, Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Kansas as faculty member and scientist. His primary research focuses on understanding and quantifying land biosphere's roles in global biogeochemical and hydrological cycles and the climate system, and how human activities have affected Earth's ecosystem ability in providing people with goods and services including food, energy and water, and providing a scientific basis for solutions to the major environmental challenges facing humanity and the society. By using emerge technology and theory in earth system modeling, Big Data and Deep learning, satellite observation and ecosystem theory, he has developed terrestrial biosphere modeling framework for understanding, quantification and assessment of drivers and effects of changes in the biosphere, climate, and human interactions with the Earth system. His research on the global carbon cycle and greenhouse gas emissions is at the leading edge of the field. His research has resulted in over 300 publications, and many of them were published in the most prestigious journals including Science and Nature. Dr. Tian’s work has been frequnetly featured by national and international media including newspapers, TV programs and radio. He is the recipient of many US and foreign awards and honors including the Creative Research and Scholarship Award, Harry Murphy Award for Excellence in Research, Ye Duzheng’s Global Change Science Prize, and the SEC Faculty Achievement Award. In 2016, Dr. Tian was elected as a Fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest scientific society. In 2019, Dr. Tian is named Andrew Carnegie Fellow by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.