Carolina Adler, a dual national from Chile and Australia, is an Environmental Scientist and Geographer by background, with an international career spanning over 20 years in both research and practice in the public and private sectors. As the current Executive Director of the Mountain Research Initiative (MRI), she is tasked with overseeing the work of the MRI Coordination Office, as well as connecting, coordinating, and promoting global change research agendas and supporting regional and thematic networked collaborations in mountains worldwide.
Carolina Adler obtained her PhD at Monash University (Australia) in 2010, focusing on climate change adaptation and relevant policy processes for sustainable development in mountain regions, receiving the Harold D Lasswell Prize in 2010 for best thesis. Over the years, she has actively engaged with and contributed to numerous international networks and programs, such as the Society of Policy Scientists, the International Social Sciences Council and International Council for Science, now merged to form the International Science Council, as well as Future Earth through core projects such as the Earth Systems Governance Project.
She is a current Lead Author for the High Mountains chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC), due in September 2019, as well as Lead Author for the IPCC Working Group II on Impacts, Vulnerability, and Adaptation and Co-Lead for the Cross-Chapter Paper on Mountains for the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6). She is also Research Associate at the Transdisciplinarity Lab (TdLab), at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, conducting research on the transferability and uptake of knowledge stemming from inter- and transdisciplinary collaborations.