As Head of the Climate Change Impacts Branch (CCI), Professor Jeff Obbard is responsible for the project management & coordination activities relating to climate change impacts in Singapore & Southeast Asia. The CCI Branch works with a range of government and academic to stakeholders to promote the research in climate science.
Prior to joining the CCRS, Jeff worked in both the academic and private sectors in Singapore, as well as internationally. He was previously a professor and director at the Faculty of Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS) in environmental science & engineering. Whilst at NUS, he also served as the Director of the Sustainable Development & Water Alliance and as Research Director at the Tropical Marine Science Institute. Whilst at NUS, he held a joint appointment with the Agency for Science, Technology & Research (A*STAR) as the Principal Scientist for Singapore’s Bioenergy Research Programme. On a sabbatical from NUS, Jeff served as Vice President for Science & Technology in a joint-venture between Royal Dutch Shell Petroleum and the University of Hawaii Manoa on a renewable biofuel derivative and carbon-capture project. He has also served as Head & Professor of the Environmental Science Centre at Qatar University.
Jeff’s academic PhD training is an environmental biogeochemist where he studied microbially-mediated greenhouse gas fluxes between terrestrial & atmospheric systems, as impacted by anthropogenic activities. His interest in climate science & technology is in the biogeochemistry of the carbon cycle, and carbon capture. In Singapore, Jeff is the Climate Change Advisor to the National Youth Achievement Award Council (NYAAC). He is also a Visiting Professor to the School of Water, Energy & Environment at Cranfield University (Cranfield) in the United Kingdom. Cranfield is an applied postgraduate engineering university that conducts advanced research on carbon-capture, as well as sustainable transport and manufacturing.