Astrid Caldas

Astrid Caldas is a senior climate scientist for community resilience at the Union of Concerned Scientists, where her work focuses on climate change adaptation and science communication, with practical policy implications for ecosystems, the economy, and society - including equitable and just adaptation and resilience measures. She was born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where she started her career as a field ecologist. After moving to the United States, she staged a change that brought her to the arena of climate change science and policy, and related issues of climate justice, biodiversity, and sustainability.

Before joining UCS, Dr. Caldas was a Science & Technology Policy Fellow at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Climate Change and Wildlife Science fellow at Defenders of Wildlife, a research scientist at the University of Maryland, and a professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. Caldas has advised on biodiversity projects with the Smithsonian Institution, was a member of the Scientific Review Committee at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, and has worked in both domestic and international settings.

Caldas holds a Ph.D. in ecology and Master’s degrees in entomology and environmental management. She has brought word of the science behind climate change impacts to a variety of audiences and has been quoted widely, including in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, and has appeared on numerous NPR stations, CBS, NBC, Fox, and Univisión.