Biography

Dr. Jones is a Staff Scientist in the Climate and Ecosystem Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory where he leads the Earth Systems and Society Program Domain.   He is the Hydroclimate theme lead for LBL’s Water-Energy Resilience Research Institute (WERRI) and the Resilient Systems Grand Challenge lead for the Earth and Environmental Sciences Strategic Vision.  He previously served as the Deputy Director of the Climate Readiness Institute.

His research uses quantitative Earth system science tools –computer models, uncertainty quantification techniques, etc. – to gain decision-relevant insight into how humans affect the climate and vice versa.  Major themes include the “usability” of regional climate projections for adaptation planning, the resilience of energy, water, and food systems to multiple stressors, the role of land use change in efforts to both reduce and adapt to climate change, and the tightly coupled interactions among people, built infrastructure, and environmental processes in urban contexts.

Dr. Jones is the LBL co-PI for the multi-institutional Project Hyperion, within which he leads a stakeholder engagement process with water management professionals in four case study basins across the US aimed at evaluating and improving the decision-relevance of high-resolution climate projections for long-range water system planning.

Dr. Jones is also currently leading efforts to understand urban environmental processes (heat waves, vegetation dynamics, hydrologic flows and their implications for energy and water resources) in the context of changing climate, land use, and demographics.