Professor Dr. Fiamma Straneo

Biography

Fiamma Straneo is a Professor at Harvard University in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and the Gordon McKay Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering. Her research predominantly centers on climate in polar regions, focusing on the ocean, ice sheets, and sea ice. Fiamma joined Harvard University in 2024 and has been pivotal in advancing research aimed at obtaining data from undersampled polar regions. This involves the use of platforms such as icebreakers, kayaks, and autonomous vehicles, all in efforts to enhance the understanding of climate change implications in the Arctic and for global communities. Her additional research interests encompass sea level rise, ice-ocean interactions, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, and the development of systems to describe climate and marine environments. She also works closely with local Arctic communities to integrate traditional knowledge into community-based monitoring initiatives and promotes low to no-emission data collection approaches. Before her tenure at Harvard, Straneo was a Professor of Polar Science at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego from 2017 to 2024, and before that, she served as a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution from 2001 to 2017.

Research Interests

Experience