Climate Health Society Welcomes Pioneering Climate Scientist Dr. Zong-Liang Yang to Its Board

Climate harms to human health demand that all sectors work together. Dr. Yang is the bridge that translates climate science into actionable insight.

NEW YORK, NY, UNITED STATES — The Climate Health Society today announced the appointment of Dr. Zong-Liang Yang to its Board of Directors. This is an historic first for the Society, which was founded on the conviction that meeting the health challenges of a changing climate demands professionals from every sector work together. As the first climate scientist to join the Board, Dr. Yang brings expertise in Earth systems that will sharpen the Society’s ability to bridge rigorous climate science with the broad diversity of professionals who make up its growing membership.

Solving the climate-health crisis takes every sector working in concert. Dr. Yang’s appointment brings critical expertise to the Climate Health Society that will accelerate innovative connections.”— Prof. Ying Zhang, Board Chair, Climate Health Society

Dr. Yang is Professor, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Jackson School of Geosciences, and the John A. and Katherine G. Jackson Chair in Earth System Sciences, and the Morgan J. Davis Centennial Chair in Geosciences at The University of Texas at Austin. As a climate scientist Dr. Yang understands how his work sits at the intersection of water, land, and atmosphere — the systems that together determine how climate change translates into floods, droughts, heatwaves, and the cascading health consequences that follow. His research centers on understanding how energy, water, and momentum move between the land surface and the atmosphere, and on building the models that make those dynamics predictable.

He has been a central contributor to two of the most widely used land surface models in the world — CLM and Noah-MP — which are embedded in the operational systems of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, and the National Water Center. These models have been used to forecast and reconstruct some of the most consequential extreme weather events in recent memory, including Hurricane Harvey.

Beyond modeling, Dr. Yang develops high-resolution regional climate tools that translate global climate projections into the granular, place-specific information that planners, engineers, decision-makers, and health system leaders actually need. He is a Fellow of both the American Meteorological Society and the American Geophysical Union.

He is also a committed educator. His undergraduate courses on climate and environment — now part of a sustainability minor for engineering students — reflect a belief that climate literacy belongs across disciplines, not just within the geosciences.

The Climate Health Society was built on a simple but urgent premise: the intersection of climate and health is too important, and too complex, for any single profession or sector to address alone. Dr. Yang’s appointment is a signal that the Society is deepening its scientific foundations while remaining firmly committed to that broad, cross-sector vision.

Dr. Yang was a postdoc and then research faculty at the University of Arizona and he holds a Ph.D. degree in Atmospheric Sciences from Macquarie University and an MS in Meteorology from University of Melbourne in Australia.

About the Climate Health Society

The Climate Health Society membership spans clinicians, epidemiologists, climate scientists, actuaries, urban planners,, financial experts, industry, non-profits and the private sector — all united by a shared commitment to work together toward understanding and acting on the health consequences of climate change. The Climate Health Society is a global professional organization dedicated to advancing interdisciplinary collaboration in research, education, and innovation across all disciplines, sectors, and industries working on climate change and global health. We seek bridge building to advance the prevention and treatment of health risks from climate change, harmful environmental exposures, and ecological degradation while promoting strategies to enhance resilience and quality of life. The climate-health crisis is a challenge that no single profession can solve alone—but together, we can. By uniting all sectors we can unlock the full range of knowledge needed to create solutions that are evidence-based, effective, economically viable, and scalable. Climate Health Society invites all professionals working at the intersection of climate and health to join our community.
www.climatehealthsociety.org

The Journal of Climate Change and Health is the official journal of the Climate Health Society.

Director
Climate Health Society
info@climatehealthsociety.org
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