Julian Ramirez-Villegas

Prof. Dr. Julian Ramirez-Villegas is a Principal Scientist. He is the Interim Director for Climate Action at the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT).

Julian is also a Professor of Agricultural Climate Impacts and Adaptation at Wageningen University & Research. Julian is an Agricultural Engineer by training, with a PhD in Environmental Sciences. He gained a PhD in Environmental Sciences at the University of Leeds in late 2013, after which he worked as a postdoctoral research fellow for three years at same university, funded by the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS).

Julian’s research spans a range of disciplines including climate change adaptation, crop modeling, agro-meteorology, biodiversity conservation, and geographic information systems.

He has published more than 80 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. At the Alliance, Julian also leads the Data Science and Climate Services team –a team of young and talented researchers with expertise on agricultural, food systems and climate modeling, climate change, and geographic information science.