Dr. Kirstin Dow is a social environmental geographer focusing on understanding climate impacts, vulnerability and adaptation. She is Professor of Geography at the University of South Carolina and principal investigator of the Carolinas Integrated Sciences and Assessments, an interdisciplinary research team that bridges climate science and decision-making in the Carolinas. Kirstin is a lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment, Working Group 2 Chapter on Adaptation Opportunities, Constraints and Limits, and the Summary for Policy Makers (2014). She is also a lead author on the Research Needs chapter for the Third US National Climate Assessment and of a special report on establishing a sustained US National Climate Assessment. In addition, she was a co-editor of Climate of the Southeast United States: Variability, Change, Impacts, and Vulnerability. She serves as an editor of Weather, Climate, and Society, and an Editorial Board member of Climate Risk Management. Her publications have appeared in Nature Climate Change, Regional Environmental Change, and other journals. Kirstin received her Ph.D. in Geography from Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1996.