Columbia Climate School Announces First Faculty Hire

Kristina G. Douglass, associate professor of climate at the Columbia Climate School
Patrick Mansell / Penn State

Kristina G. Douglass, an archaeologist and anthropologist who studies the history of human-environment interactions in Madagascar, has been appointed an associate professor of climate at the Columbia Climate School.

Douglass is the first faculty member hired directly into the new climate school. She joins the ranks of Columbia faculty in other centers and departments who are already a part of the school’s first-in-the-nation graduate program training the next generation of leaders to combat global warming.

“We are thrilled that Kristina will be joining the climate-school team, bringing her groundbreaking and inclusive research approach on human-environment interactions, environmental justice, and conservation,” says the school’s founding dean, Alex Halliday. “Kristina’s work aligns strongly with the climate school’s priority of leveraging interdisciplinary research and education.”

Douglass was recruited to Columbia from Penn State University, where she directed the Morombe Archaeological Project, which works closely with members of indigenous fishing communities in southwest Madagascar to understand how people in the region have altered and been affected by the local ecology over time.