Paul Kirshen is Professor of Climate Adaptation in the School for the Environment at University of Massachusetts Boston and Research Director of the Stone Living Lab. He has more than 40 years of experience serving as Principal Investigator of complex, interdisciplinary, participatory research related to water resources, coastal zone, and infrastructure management, and climate variability and change. He was a Lead Author of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (water resources in North America) and the 2014 US National Climate Assessment (coastal zone). He works at scales ranging from local to international.
He has been conducting research and consulting on the integrated vulnerability of Boston to present and future climates and adaptation/management strategies since 1990 and continues to support the City and metro Boston. Recent adaptation experience has also been in New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut and the Caribbean. He has approximately 100 journal articles on these topics and numerous technical reports. He received his ScB in Engineering from Brown University and his MS and PhD in Civil Engineering from MIT.