BUFFALO, N.Y. — Sophie Nowicki, a University at Buffalo expert on climate change, ice sheets and sea level rise, has been elected a fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). 

Fellows are AGU members who have made exceptional contributions to Earth and space science through a breakthrough, discovery, or innovation in their field. They also act as external experts, capable of advising government agencies and other organizations outside the sciences upon request.

Nowicki, PhD, is a SUNY Empire Innovation Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences in the UB College of Arts and Sciences, and a core faculty member in the UB RENEW Institute. 

An internationally recognized ice sheet scientist and climate modeler, her work focuses on using advanced models to analyze the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, their connections to Earth’s climate system and their impact on sea level.

Nowicki is the co-chair of ISMIP7, a first-of-its-kind international effort to project how the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets will contribute to sea level rise all the way to 2300. ISMIP7 is short for Ice Sheet Model Intercomparison Project for phase 7 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. 

She was also co-chair of the previous phase, ISMIP6, whose projections of ice sheet melt and their contributions to global sea level rise were adopted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and featured prominently in its 6th Assessment Report. Nowicki was a lead author on the report’s chapter on ocean, cryosphere and sea level change.

She is also part of the Earth Dynamics Geodetic Explorer (EDGE) team that was selected for a NASA satellite mission designed to improve predictions of environmental change and help mitigate natural disasters. As the first global satellite imaging laser altimeter system, EDGE will make high-resolution, three-dimensional observations of glaciers, ice sheets and sea ice, as well as terrestrial ecosystems. 

Nowicki serves as EDGE’s cryosphere application lead, tasked with coordinating and expanding ice sheet modeling, as well as community engagement with the team’s data set. 

At UB, Nowicki is director for the Center for Geological and Climate Hazards, which brings together students, faculty and researchers to study events like earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions and climate-driven hazards. She leads the center’s Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program, funded by the National Science Foundation and the State University of New York Chancellor’s Summer Research Excellence Fund.

Prior to joining UB in 2020, Nowicki spent 11 years at NASA, including as a research scientist and deputy chief for the Cryospheric Sciences Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. While there, Nowicki was a science team member for Operation IceBridge and co-lead for SeaRISE (Sea-level Response to Ice Sheet Evolution), an international effort that investigated the sensitivity of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets to external environmental forcings. 

Nowicki has received numerous awards and honors throughout her career. The ISMIP6 team received the International Glaciological Society’s 2022 Richardson Medal, while the authors of the IPCC report received the 2022 Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. A feature of West Antarctica, “Nowicki Foreland,” was named after her in honor of her contributions to understanding sea level rise.

Nowicki holds a PhD in theoretical glaciology from University College London, as well as a MSc in remote sensing and image processing and a bachelor’s degree in geophysics from the University of Edinburgh.

She and the other 2026 Fellows will be honored at AGU26 in San Francisco in December.