Katharine Hayhoe

Early life and education

Hayhoe is from Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Hayhoe received a degree in physics and astronomy from the University of Toronto, and her masters' and PhD in atmospheric science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her Ph.D. committee was chaired by Donald Wuebbles.

Career

Hayhoe has worked at Texas Tech since 2005. She has authored more than 120 peer-reviewed publications, and wrote the book A Climate for Change: Global Warming Facts for Faith-Based Decisions together with her husband, Andrew Farley. She also co-authored some reports for the US Global Change Research Program, as well as some National Academy of Sciences reports, including the 3rd National Climate Assessment, released on May 6, 2014. Shortly after the report was released, Hayhoe said, "Climate change is here and now, and not in some distant time or place," adding that "The choices we're making today will have a significant impact on our future." She has also served as an expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fourth Assessment Report.

Professor John Abraham has called her "perhaps the best communicator on climate change." Time magazine listed her among the 100 most influential people in 2014. Also in 2014, the American Geophysical Union awarded her its climate communications award. The first episode of the documentary TV series Years of Living Dangerously features her work and her communication with religious audiences in Texas.

Newt Gingrich book

Hayhoe wrote a chapter of a book by Newt Gingrich about climate change in 2009, and, in 2011, was told by Gingrich's co-author, Terry Maple, that it had been accepted. Gingrich announced in late 2011 that this chapter was dropped on his request, saying "We didn't know that they were doing that, and we told them to kill it."

Upon finding out that her chapter had been dropped, Hayhoe stated, "I had not heard that" and tweeted that she had spent over 100 unpaid hours working on the chapter. Some have speculated that Gingrich dropped her chapter because Marc Morano, who is not a scientist, wrote many articles on his website, Climate Depot, attacking her findings. This, as well as her appearing on Bill O'Reilly's TV show, led to her receiving nearly 200 hate-mail messages the following day. Shortly after, Hayhoe was a target of a Freedom of Information lawsuit by the conservative PAC American Tradition Institute demanding release of her notes and emails related to the writing of the unpublished chapter for the Gingrich book

Personal life

Hayhoe, who is an evangelical Christian, is the daughter of missionaries. She has stated that admitting her life as a Christian and a scientist is "like coming out of the closet". Her father retired as the science and technology coordinator for the Toronto District School Board and is currently an associate professor of education at Tyndale University College and Seminary in Toronto. Hayhoe credits her father as an inspiration with regard to her belief that science and religion do not have to conflict with one another.

She met her husband, Andrew Farley, while doing graduate studies at the University of Illinois. Farley is a linguist and the pastor of an evangelical church in Lubbock, Texas.