Dr. Kate Brauman joined the Global Water Security Center (GWSC) on Monday, Nov. 1, as its associate director for analysis and communications. Brauman is a 2020-22 Water and Climate Resilience Fellow at the US Department of Defense through a Science Technology Policy Fellowship with the American Academy for the Advancement of Science.

Brauman’s research quantifies and communicates how changes in nature affect human wellbeing, with a particular focus on water resources. She was a coordinating lead author for the Global Assessment of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), a Section Lead for the 2021 United Nations Environmental Programme Global Synthesis Report “Making Peace with Nature,” and a 2018 AAAS Leshner Leadership Fellow for Public Engagement.

Brauman most recently served as the Lead Scientist for the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment Global Water Initiative, where she was a member of the Natural Capital Project science team. Her projects include payments for watershed services, global variation in “crop per drop,” and worldwide trends in water consumption and availability. She received her doctorate from Stanford University and her undergraduate degree from Columbia University.

“Dr. Brauman is an incredible addition to the GWSC team and the UA research community,” said GWSC Director Mike Gremillion. “She is on the leading edge of research on how water relates to human behavior and risk. Her background and expertise provides a tremendous push toward our mission to operationalize water security research to transform decision-making processes at the national and international levels.”