Charlotte DeWald

Fellow

Charlotte DeWald is a Fellow at Renaissance Philanthropy and Director of the Arctic Climate Emergencies Response (ACER) Initiative. An atmospheric scientist, Charlotte’s research centers on highly efficient ice-nucleating particles (INPs)—extremely rare aerosols that influence cloud properties, precipitation, and the Earth’s radiative balance—as well as the biological, chemical, and physical systems that link the surface ocean to the atmosphere. These earth systems insights now power ACER’s mission: to advance solutions that could slow or reverse progress toward Arctic climate tipping points before they lock in.

Charlotte led a series of recent large-scale international scientific collaborations—including partners at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Colorado State University, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Cyprus Institute, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and others, yielding the first INP observations over the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Persian Gulf, satellite-based constraints on aerosol-cloud interactions, and the development of patented instrumentation for high-temperature INP detection.

She was previously a founding Senior Scientist at Reflective, where she led development of open-access tools for the public and policymakers to explore the risks and trade-offs of stratospheric aerosol injection.

Charlotte holds a Ph.D. in Climate Science from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.