Menu Close
Senior Lecturer in Climate Science, Australian National University

Dr Joëlle Gergis is an award-winning climate scientist and writer from the Australian National University. She is an internationally recognised expert in Australian and Southern Hemisphere climate variability and change; based in the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes. Her research focuses on providing a long-term historical context for assessing recently observed climate variability and extremes.

In 2013 Dr Gergis was awarded an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) fellowship, and her team won the 2014 Eureka Prize for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Scientific Research - informally known as the 'Oscars of Australian Science'.

In 2015 Dr Gergis was awarded the Dean's Award for Excellence in Research in the Faculty of Science at the University of Melbourne.

In August 2018 she was appointed to the Climate Council, an independent body providing expert advice to the Australian public on climate change and policy.

Between 2018 and 2021, Joëlle served as a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report – a global, state-of-the art review of climate change science.

In November 2019 Dr Gergis received the 2019 AMOS Science Outreach Award, a national prize for science communication awarded by the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (AMOS), Australia’s peak professional body for climate science.

Joëlle is the author of Sunburnt Country: The future and history of climate change in Australia. Her latest book, Humanity's Moment: a climate scientist's case for hope, will be released in September 2022.

Experience

  • 2009–present
    Leader, Past Global Changes (PAGES) working group on Australasian climate variability
  • 2013–present
    ARC DECRA Fellow, University of Melbourne
  • 2009–2013
    ARC Linkage APDI Fellow, University of Melbourne
  • 2008–2009
    Climate Research Fellow, University of Melbourne

Education

  • 2013 
    RMIT University, Diploma Professional Writing and Editing
  • 2006 
    University of New South Wales , PhD (Climatology)
  • 2000 
    University of New South Wales , BSc (Advanced Science – Environmental Science)

Professional Memberships

  • Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society
  • Australasian Quaternary Association
  • Writers Victoria

Honours

2014 Eureka Prize for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Scientific Research, 2015 Faculty of Science Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research, University of Melbourne, 2019 AMOS Science Outreach Award