Dr. Anthony Janetos, a longstanding member of the USGCRP community and Director of Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, passed away on Tuesday, August 6, 2019. He was 64 years old. 

 

Dr. Janetos dedicated his career to interdisciplinary, policy-relevant global change science. Prior to the Pardee Center, he led the University of Maryland/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s Joint Global Change Research Institute and held leadership roles with the H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment, World Resources Institute, NASA, and the EPA. Dr. Janetos actively participated in major national and international research efforts, sitting on committees of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) and serving as an author on two Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments. 

 

Dr. Janetos made significant contributions to USGCRP throughout his career, beginning in the early days of the Program, when he oversaw interagency activities in ecological research on global change and co-chaired the First National Climate Assessment. Even after he left Federal service, Dr. Janetos remained involved with USGCRP, serving as a member of the National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee and a lead author for the Third National Climate Assessment, an author of the Fourth National Climate Assessment chapter on complex systems, and, most recently, as co-Chair of the NASEM Committee to Advise the USGCRP.  

 

“The U.S. climate science community is deeply saddened by the loss of Dr. Tony Janetos,” said Dr. Virginia Burkett, Acting Chair of the Subcommittee on Global Change Research. “He was a pioneer in Earth Observing systems and an international expert on climate change and its impacts. Tony was a visionary on the use of satellite and in-situ observations as indicators of our changing world, and he could translate climate science for policy makers in the most compelling yet thoughtful manner. We will miss him as an advisor to the U.S. Global Change Research Program and convey our sorrow and deepest condolences to his wife, Valerie, and his children, Peter and Anna.”