| Nobel Prize-Winning Contributions
Two Rensselaer alumni were part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore. The IPCC and its contributing scientists were honored “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”
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Dork Sahagian ’77 and Robert Schock, Ph.D. ’66
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Dork Sahagian ’77, who earned a bachelor’s in physics from Rensselaer, and Robert Schock, Ph.D. ’66, who earned a master’s and doctorate in geology, were part of several working groups of the IPCC and helped author comprehensive scientific assessment reports for policy makers and the public on the impacts and mitigation of global climate change.
Sahagian is currently professor of earth and environmental sciences and director of the Environmental Initiative at Lehigh University. He contributed to three of four IPCC assessment reports as a contributing author and a reviewer. His work delved into humanity’s effect on sea-level rise.
Before moving to Lehigh, Sahagian was director of the integrative branch of the Inter-national Geosphere-Biosphere Programme at the University of New Hampshire’s Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space.
Robert Schock, Ph.D. ’66, is director of studies for the World Energy Council (WEC) in London as well as a consultant to industries and governments worldwide. He was a coordinating lead author for the fourth assessment report of the IPCC, for which he investigated the costs and benefits of different approaches to mitigating and avoiding climate change.
Prior to joining the WEC, Schock spent most of his career at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he rose to the position of associate director. He is a senior fellow in the Center for Global Security Research in California and studies the application of technology to global policy issues.
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