Report on the first We Champion speaker session with Andrew Kruczkiewicz

Haizhen Li, School of Social Work, Columbia University

On March 24th, Mission 4.7 successfully held our first session of the We Champion Series with Andrew Kruczkiewicz, a climate scientist with applications for the health and humanitarian sectors at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society. When asked about introducing himself to people who are not from the sciences, Andrew described himself as a meteorologist by background, but now most of his work is related to brokering, translating and integrating Climate Science and risk data within decision making. In this work as a Climate Science Translator, standing at the intersection of science policy and practice it is important to be driven by the scientific method from both policy and operational sides while working on Integrating the climate and meteorological science and data into decision making and policy  in particular within humanitarian communities.

Andrew described Climate Science Translators as quantitative scientists embedded within a specific sector - in his case, the humanitarian sector. In addition to leading research as Principal Investigator at Columbia and lecturing, Andrew  also works as a science advisor for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent. When talking about what brought him to write this article, Andrew said it is because while there is a high need for the role, there are not many Climate Science Translators. There is a big gap between science and the humanitarian sector:  because of no training or coursework, nowadays people from the humanitarian and disaster management sector barely know how to use data, and which sources are the best. Though they are interested in talking to scientists and learning about which science is best fit, the best scientists either don’t have time to engage with the humanitarian sector, or it is a skill in itself. It is clear that the incentive structures aren’t necessarily there. Plus, the definition of scientists is still driven by traditional metrics, including the need to teach, to raise money, to publish papers, but none of these include building trust within the humanitarian community. Just like in interdisciplinary sustainability science, career benchmarks for Climate Science Translator are still unclear, leading to a career environment that fails to promote growth. Far too often a Climate Science Translator is perceived to lack full commitment and/or expertise related to one role (climate science) or the other (practical use of climate science information), which leads to the interpretation of a Climate Science Translator to be partial and/or peripheral members of each role. Thus, one intention of writing this paper was to urge more structure for  CSTs career paths, Highlighting opportunities for existing problems by describing  competencies from an educational perspective for Climate Science Translators that we need to promote or at least to discuss. One outcome of the paper was making progress in how we can define Climate Science Translator as a specific role and a specific career path to better combine the science with what is important to the humanitarian sector 

Andrew then dived deeper to talk about core competencies that Climate Science Translators should have. At first, be aware of and be able to describe what they are trying to do. Andrew shared that he used to be the person who designed algorithms to correct the raw data from different sensors, but then decided to step towards a place where there is propagation of tweaking and tailoring the data. Like a refugee camp manager who is in charge of developing disaster risk management should know how to take actions before a tropical cyclone, what forecast he is going to use, and how long does it take to actually take these actions, a Climate Science Translator should know exactly how to perform their own roles. Besides, climate scientist translators should be able to communicate the overarching context of uncertainty, in an accurate way. With the translator role, they have trust in brokering potential on both side: they should communicate not only from the data side towards the decision makers, but also be aware of what are the considerations and concerns of the decision makers, and what is the tolerance of uncertainty related to the decision making context, and then communicate all of these  back to the data side. Climate Science Translators ideally will be able to maintain and build trust between these communities. “You don’t need to be the best climate scientist nor the best humanitarian workers, instead, it is about the brokering and tailoring, and understanding the processes within that chain, to a certain degree to be able to communicate in broker relationships. Climate Science Translators are in a very privileged position to be trusted by various communities,“ Andrew said. 

After explaining the definition, current situation as well as core competencies of Climate Science Translators, Andrew talked about the gaps in the education field that can be filled to address the need for climate science translators. Accurately communicating between the science and the humanitarian sector is something climate science translators should help with, and this can come across and be well-defined in educational curriculum. Thus, from the education side, they can develop some interdisciplinary climate programs, like the climate and society master program in Columbia, which will equip candidates with knowledge, basic sense, and awareness to figure out questions and confront the pressure. Some top climate advisors and strategists use data in a wrong, even damaging way. If we have Climate Science Translators, it is easier to provoke awareness and appropriateness, and this is also a way to evaluate and monitor the process, to see what works and what doesn’t work.

Watch the session below.