Prof. Judith Curry took her bachelor’s degree in geography from Northern Illinois University in 1974, and her PhD in geophysical sciences from the University of Chicago in 1982. In 2017, under intense pressure and amid public controversy, she resigned her long-time position as Professor in the School of Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech University, where she had served as Chair of the School from 2002 until 2013. Prior to coming to Georgia Tech, Curry had been Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado-Boulder, and before that had taught at a number of other prestigious universities, including Penn State, Purdue, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has published nearly 200 peer-reviewed papers, and is co-author or -editor of three important textbooks: with Vitaly I. Khvorostyanov, Thermodynamics, Kinetics, and Microphysics of Clouds (Cambridge University Press, 2014); with James R. Holton and John Pyle, Encyclopedia of Atmospheric Sciences (Academic Press, 2003); and with Peter J. Webster, Thermodynamics of Atmospheres and Oceans(Academic Press, 1998). Curry has served on NASA’s Advisory Council Earth Science Subcommittee, on the Climate Working Group of the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and on the National Academies’ Space Studies Board and Climate Research Group. In 2004, she was elected a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, and in 2007, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

In spite of these solid credentials and achievements — and despite her entrenched position within the institutions of mainstream American academic climatology — Curry came under vitriolic attack for publicly censuring what she perceives as the growing politicization of climate science, which she feels has resulted in claims that are not adequately supported scientifically, in the stifling of needed further research, and in intimidation, fear, and conformity throughout the discipline. It was this courageous public stance — including an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal in 2014 and culminating in congressional testimony in 2015 and again in 2017 — that eventually led to her resignation from her tenured position at Georgia Tech earlier this year.

See also a blogpost from from Dr. Curry