Alaric McCarthy

Alexandre K. Magnan

Senior Social Scientist

Role at Cawthron

Alex is a geographer with 20-years of experience in climate change adaptation in coastal areas and small islands (Indian and Pacific Oceans), working across the science-policy interface. His work explores past-to-present drivers of societal vulnerability, future climate risks, maladaptation to climate change, the potential effectiveness of adaptation-related solutions, and the design of adaptation pathways. He is particularly interested in developing Structured Expert Judgment exercises to generate groundbreaking, trans-disciplinary actionable knowledge.

Alex has been a lead author for the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Special Report on Oceans and Cryosphere in 2019, and Sixth Assessment Report in 2022); he has led the framing chapter of the UNEP Adaptation Gap Report series since 2020; and is a member of the Scientific Committee of the World Adaptation Science Programme.

He is part of Cawthron’s Trans-disciplinary Science Group and contributes to several cross-Institute multi-disciplinary teams, especially supporting resilient communities in the Pacific, and enhancing climate change research.

Technical skills, experience and interests

  • Social geography
  • Trans-disciplinary Structured Expert Judgment methods
  • Science-policy interface methods

Qualifications

  • Habilitation to supervise Research (HDR), La Rochelle University, France, 2018
  • PhD (Geography), University of Montpellier III, France, 2005

Professional Affiliations.

  • Associate Researcher at La Rochelle University, France

See Alexandre’s ORCHID profile here.
See Alexandre’s Google Scholar here.

Alaric McCarthy