Brief CV

Paul J. Kushner has been at the Department of Physics at the University of Toronto since 2004, where he served as Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies from 2012-2015. From 2013-2019, he was the principal investigator of the Canadian Sea Ice and Snow Evolution Network (CanSISE, www.cansise.ca), a research network studying snow, sea ice and related climate processes in the Arctic and the Western Cordillera region of Canada. He has served as Vice-President (2017-2018), President (2018-2019) and Past President (2019-2020) of the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (cmos.ca). He serves on the advisory boards of the KITP at UC Santa Barabara, and of the HILAT-RASM project in the US.

Previously, he served as a member of the Scientific Steering Committee for the Community Earth System Model of the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (2010-2019), 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 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 Arctic and high latitude processes (including 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.

  • Research group: 1 postdoctoral fellow, 5 graduate students, 3 undergraduate students.

  • Current Responsibilities
     + Member, SSG, WCRP Lighthouse Activity on Explaining and Predicting Earth System Change
    + Associate Editor, Science Advances
    + Chair, University and Professional Education Committee of CMOS
    + Member, Advisory Board, PCIC
    + Member, Advisory Board, HILAT-RASM project
    + Member, Executive Committe, University of Toronto Centre for Climate Science and Engineering
    + Past Chair, CMOS Special Interest Group on Atmosphere-Related Research in Canadian Universities

  • Past Positions:
    + Member, Advisory Board, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics
    + Member, Scientific Steering Committee, NCAR CESM
    + 2019-2020: Past-President, CMOS
    + 2018-2019: President, CMOS
    + 2018-2019: Sabbatical appointments: Visiting Scientist, Paul G. Allen Family Foundation; Visiting Faculty, Columbia University/Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory; Visiting Scientist, University of Bergen
    + 2017-2018: Vice President, CMOS
    + 2012-2014: Associate Chair (undergraduate studies), Dept. of Physics, U. of Toronto
    + 2012: Organizer, BIRS Workshop on Frontiers of Detection and Attribution of Climate Change
    + 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:
    + 2013-2019: PI, Canadian Sea Ice and Snow Evolution Network (CanSISE)
    + 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.