prof.dr. JA (Julian) Ramirez Villegas
Special ProfessorJulian Ramirez-Villegas is a Special Professor on Agricultural Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation, working in the Plant Production Systems group. Julian holds a PhD on Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation from the University of Leeds (UK). Apart from being at PPS, Julian is also a Principal Scientist and the Leader of Data Science for Climate Action at the CGIAR, based in Rome (Italy).
Julian’s research focuses on understanding how farming systems can adapt to climate change, with special emphasis on low and middle income countries. Julian has published more than 60 peer-reviewed articles, including in high-impact journals such as PNAS and Nature. His work on climate adaptation has been internationally recognized by the United Nations. In the CGIAR, Julian leads a team of young and talented researchers with expertise on agricultural, food systems and climate modeling, climate change, and geographic information systems.
In PPS, Julian focuses on three key research questions
- Which adaptation options are most effective across timescales and what are their limits in tropical plant production systems?
- How do these different adaptation forms (coping, systems change, transformation) interact with each other in the context of climate and socio-economic change?
- What are the trade-offs between agricultural adaptation and mitigation across timescales, especially where transformation is projected to occur?