Robert Wood, Ph.D.

Robert Wood is an atmospheric physicist and professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington. Wood has a B.S. in physics from the University of Cambridge and a Ph.D. in atmospheric physics from the University of Manchester. He leads a research group focusing upon understanding processes controlling clouds in the Earth’s atmosphere and the roles that clouds play in determining climate variability and change, the formation of rain and how tiny aerosol particles (both natural and anthropogenic) interact with them and affect their properties. Wood’s research uses a combination of observational data collected with aircraft, satellites and from ground-based remote sensing, together with numerical and theoretical models. Wood has been interested in the idea of reflecting sunlight to cool Earth for over a decade. He serves as lead scientist for the Marine Cloud Brightening Project at the University of Washington, which aims to better our understanding of the feasibility of deliberately seeding marine low clouds as a potential means for cooling the Earth system.