Paul J. Kushner

Brief CV

Paul J. Kushner has been at the Department of Physics at the University of Toronto since 2004, and currently serves as Associate Chair (Undergraduate Studies) there. He is a member of the Scientific Steering Committee for the Community Earth System Model of the National Centre for Atmospheric Research, and has served as an editor of the Journal of Climate of the American Meteorological Society. Before joining the faculty at the University of Toronto, he was a research scientist in the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration in Princeton NJ, and a lecturer in the Dept. of Geosciences at Princeton University. 

Kushner's research group uses computer models and techniques of theoretical physics to learn about the atmosphere's circulation and how it will respond to climate change. The group's current research projects focus on climate variability from interannual to multidecadal scales, on what controls the jet streams, on how snowfall and atmospheric circulation are linked together, and on how the stratosphere (the atmosphere above 10 km) is linked to the troposphere (the atmosphere below 10 km).

• Education:
  + B.Sc. '90, M.Sc. '91 and Ph.D. '95 from Dept. of Physics, U. of Toronto.
• Current Position (since 2004):
  + Professor, Dept. of Physics (Atmospheric Physics), U. of Toronto.
  + Visiting Scientist, CERFACS, Toulouse, France (summer 2012) 
• + Research group: 3 postdocs, 3 graduate students, 4 undergraduate students.
  + Member, University of Toronto Centre for Global Change Science.
• Current Responsibilities
  + Associate Chair (undergraduate studies), Dept. of Physics, U. of Toronto
  + Organizer, BIRS Workshop on Frontiers of Detection and Attribution of Climate Change (May 2012)
  + Member, Scientific Steering Committee, NCAR CESM
• Past Positions:
  + 2010-2011: ASP Faculty Fellow, NCAR (sabbatical appointment)
  + 1998-2003: Research Scientist, NOAA/GFDL, Princeton NJ.
  + 2001-2003: Lecturer, AOS/Geosciences, Princeton U.
  + 1995-1998: Visiting Scientist, AOS/Geosciences, Princeton U.
• Past Responsibilities:
  + 2009-2012: Coordinator of U of Toronto Centre for Global Change Science Lectures
• + 2009-2012: Member, NSERC Discovery Grant ESG1506 (geosciences)
  + 2008-2010: Chair, Welsh Lecture Committee, Department of Physics, University of Toronto
  + 2009: Co-convenor of Symposium on Interannual-Decadal Predicatbility, MOCA-09
  + 2006-2009: Coordinator of the SPARC DynVar Project.
  + 2004-2009: An editor of the American Met. Society's Journal of Climate.
  + 2008: Organizing Cttee, KITP "Physics of Climate Change" Frontiers Conference.
  + 2006-2008: Chair of Physics Colloquium Series, U. of Toronto.
• + 2005-2006: Chair of Scientific Organizing Committee, 2006 CMOS Congress.
  + 2001-2003: Co-leader, GFDL Global Atmospheric Model Development Team.