Dr Joëlle Gergis

Dr Joëlle Gergis is an award-winning climate scientist and writer. She is an internationally recognised expert in Australian and Southern Hemisphere climate variability and change who has authored over 100 scientific publications. Her research focuses on providing a long-term historical context for assessing recently observed climate variability and extremes.

Joëlle began her scientific career in 1997 as a teaching and research assistant at the University of New South Wales, before completing her PhD on El Niño in 2006. She was based at the University of Melbourne from 2008 until 2019, working as an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Research Award (DECRA) Fellow, ARC Post-Doctoral Research Industry (APDI) Fellow, and a lecturer in climate science. From 2019–2024, she was a Senior Lecturer in Climate Science in the Fenner School of Environment and Society at the Australian National University.

Between 2018 and 2021, Joëlle served as a lead author on the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on the Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Report – a global, state-of-the art review of climate change science.

As a leading climate change spokesperson, Joëlle spends a lot of time translating science for the public. Her general audience writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Monthly, The Saturday Paper, Griffith Review, The Conversation and Harper’s Bazaar.

She has also contributed chapters to The Climate Book by Greta Thunberg, and Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility, edited by Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua.

Joëlle is author of three books: Sunburnt Country: The future and history of climate change in Australia; Humanity’s Moment: A Climate Scientist’s Case for Hope, and Highway to Hell: Climate Change and Australia's Future.

She holds a Diploma of Professional Writing and Editing from RMIT University, with her work receiving support from the Writers Victoria 2012 Glenfern Fellowship, the 2024 Varuna Climate Fellowship and The Australia Institute’s 2024 Writer in Residence program. Her book Humanity’s Moment, was shortlisted for a 2023 Australian Book Industry Award (ABIA) and the 2023 Queensland Literary Non-Fiction Award, and won the 2023 Scholarly Book of the Year.

Joëlle has also won several scientific awards including the Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Scientific Research and the University of Melbourne's Faculty of Science Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research.

She was also the recipient of the 2019 AMOS Science Outreach Award, a national science communication prize awarded by the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (AMOS), the nation’s peak professional body for climate science. To communicate the key findings of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, in 2023 Joëlle co-hosted the podcast, Fear & Wonder, a behind the scenes look at the latest UN climate report. The series was shortlisted for an Australian Podcast Award.

Alongside her research and writing activities, Joëlle is also a scientific advisor to various organisations. From 2018–2023 she was an expert Councillor with the Climate Council of Australia, an independent body providing expert advice to the public on climate change and policy. Since 2023 she has been a member on the advisory council for Veolia Australia–New Zealand.

Joëlle currently holds honorary appointments at the University of Melbourne and the Australian National University, and is an associate investigator with the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes.