William Anderegg

2023 National Award Winner — Faculty

Current Position:
Associate Professor & Director of the Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy

Institution:
The University of Utah

Discipline:
Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Recognized for: Recognized for groundbreaking insights into how forests respond to rapid climate change from cells to ecosystems. His state-of-the-art multiscale approach has been critical in not only informing our understanding of climate change, but also building tools to predict and tackle it. Anderegg’s discoveries are already informing climate solutions, global policies, and public health.

Areas of Research Interest and Expertise: Global Ecology, Climate Change, Tree Physiology, Carbon Cycle, Drought

Previous Positions:

Assistant Professor, University of Utah
Postdoctoral Researcher, Princeton University (Advisor: Stephen Pacala)
PhD, Stanford University (Advisor: Christopher Field)
BA, Stanford University

Research Summary: Forests absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide each year, partially helping offset anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, and thus play a key role in the fight against climate change. However, because climate change is dramatically increasing stressors (e.g. drought, pests, fires) that have major impacts on forests, it remains unclear whether forests will be able to continue to slow down the climate change crisis. William Anderegg, PhD, takes a sophisticated theoretical and quantitative multilevel approach to address this question.

Dr. Anderegg’s research program examines the interaction of plant ecology and climate change by examining how processes controlled at the scale of cells cascade to ecosystems. Specifically, he addresses how drought and climate change affect the plant-soil-atmospheric systems, including tree physiology, species interaction, and biosphere-atmosphere feedbacks. Among his many significant contributions to his field, one line of work overturns a longstanding theory on how stomata operate in order to improve carbon gain and water loss in leaves, and in turn, how this affects ecosystem responses to climate globally. As a leading voice in the field of climate change, he works to build tools to predict the future of forests and to inform solutions to the climate change crisis.

Beyond his groundbreaking research, Dr. Anderegg is the Founding Director for the Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy and works with local community centers, land management agencies, and conservation organizations to inform climate solutions, global policies, and public health. He is the first ever winner of the Blavatnik Regional Awards for Young Scientists to be awarded the Blavatnik National Awards.

"We strive to illuminate the future of Earth’s forests in a rapidly changing climate, which has major implications for biodiversity, society, and the speed of climate change itself. "

Key Publications:

W.R. Anderegg, C. Wu, N. Acil, N. Carvalhais, T.A. Pugh, J. P. Sadler, & R. Seidl, R. A climate risk analysis of Earth’s forests in the 21st century. Science, 2022.
W.R. Anderegg, J.T. Abatzoglou, L.D. Anderegg, L. Bielory, P. L. Kinney, & L. Ziska. Anthropogenic climate change is worsening North American pollen seasons. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2021.
W.R. Anderegg, A. T. Trugman, D. R. Bowling, G. Salvucci, & S. E. Tuttle. Plant functional traits and climate influence drought intensification and land–atmosphere feedbacks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2019.
W.R. Anderegg, A. G. Konings, A. T. Trugman, K. Yu, D. R. Bowling, R. Gabbitas, et al. Hydraulic diversity of forests regulates ecosystem resilience during drought. Nature, 2018.