Mingfang Ting

Mingfang Ting, Professor of Climate at the Columbia Climate School, earned her Ph.D. in Climate Dynamics from Princeton University.  As a climate scientist, Dr. Ting’s research covers a wide array of topics related to climate variability and change.  These include the study of weather and climate extremes in a warming world, Asian monsoon systems, Arctic sea ice variability and changes, decadal and multidecadal climate modes, hydroclimate variability, and the impacts of climate change on agriculture and human health.

She is the recipient of the prestigious NSF CAREER award, an elected Fellow of both the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and American Meteorological Society (AMS), and has received the AMS Distinguished Scientific/Technological Accomplishment Award in Climate Variability and Change. In 2021, she was named one of the “world’s top climate scientists” by Reuters, recognized for the quality and impact of her scholarly publications in climate change science.  She served as Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Climate, one of the leading journals in physical climate science, from 2020 to 2023.  She is also Co-Senior Director for Education and Co-Director of the Master of Science in Climate Program at the Columbia Climate School.  Since 2004, she has been teaching climate science at both the undergraduate and graduate levels at Columbia University.

Fields of Interest

Impact of global climate change on regional scales in terms of atmospheric stationary waves and precipitation extremes; Dynamics of the naturally occuring and anthropogenically-forced climate changes, droughts and floods circulation; Regional climate mode

Education

  • Ph.D., Princeton University, 1990
  • M.S., Peking University, 1985
  • B.S., Peking University, 1983

Honors & Awards

  • Fellow, American Geophysical Union, 2022
  • Reuters list of the world’s top climate scientists, 2021 (https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/climate-change-scientists-list/)
  • AMS Distinguished Scientific/Technological Accomplishment Award in Climate Variability and Change, 2021
  • Fellow, American Meteorological Society, 2020
  • Nominated for Excellence in Mentoring, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, 2017 and 2018
  • Helen Corley Petit Professorship, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Illinois, 1998-1999
  • Outstanding Overseas Chinese Young Scientists Award, Chinese National Science Foundation, China, 1998
  • The National Science Foundation CAREER Award, 1995
  • The Arnold O. Beckman Research Award, University of Illinois, 1993