Professor Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick

Bio

Professor Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick completed her PhD at the University of New South Wales in 2010. She has previously held an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) and Future Fellowship. She is a Professor of Climate Science in the Fenner School of Environment and Society at Australian National University. Prof Perkins-Kirkpatrick’s work investigates trends in heatwaves globally and in Australia, as well as exploring the role of human activity behind such trends. She is currently focusing on comprehensive methods of attributing heatwaves to climate change, and how we might be able to attribute the health impacts of heatwaves to climate change. Prof Perkins-Kirkpatrick was the recipient of the 2013 Young Tall Poppy Award, the 2014 Director's Prize from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science and the 2016 Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Early Career Researcher Award. In 2016 she was named one of ‘UNSW’s 20 rising stars who will change the world’, and in 2021 she won the Australian Academy of Science Dorothy Hill Medal, as well as the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Communications and Outreach Award.