I’m Adam Michael Bauer, postdoctoral researcher at the Univeristy of Chicago’s Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth and the Climate Systems Engineering Initiative (CSEi). I am jointly advised by B. B. Cael and David Keith. My work leverages tools from data science, optimization, and computational modeling to drive insights in climate science, economics, and risk management.
You can find examples of my past work on my projects page, which goes into more detail on each project and the tools I used to complete it.
Some useful links:
- My industry resume (2 pages).. This is the best reference for what I’ve done tailored for an industry audience.
- My academic CV (5 pages). This documents everything I’ve ever done, dating back to my old days as an undergraduate researcher at the University of Arizona. Good times.
- My Github. All the code I’ve ever written. (View at your own risk.)
Research philosophy
I am an interdisciplinarian, working at the nexus of climate physics, economics, and policy (with a little computational science mixed in for good measure). My style of work isn’t to silo myself and be “the world expert” on one particular topic (though I have written papers for subject-specific field journals, like Journal of Climate and Environmental and Resource Economics). Rather, I prefer to serve as a conduit between fields – in my case, between climate physics and economics – and write papers that are insightful for both. I especially love building bridges between disciplines to bring about new collaborations and ideas that push the frontier of our understanding.
Here’s a short-list of topics I’m interested in and/or have worked on:
- Decision-making under uncertainty
- Climate interventions
- Stochastic modeling and uncertainty
- Variational data assimilation and machine learning
- Deep uncertainty modeling
- Earth’s systems models (I’m particularly interested in how end-users use these models in decision-making)
- Decarbonization investment strategies
- The physics of heat waves
Past lives
I completed my Ph.D. in physics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in November of 2024. I was co-mentored by Cristi Proistosescu, PI of the Climate Dynamics and Data Science @ UIUC group, and Gernot Wagner, a climate-economist at Columbia Business School. I was fortunate to win the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship in 2022, which supported me for the latter part of my degree. I was extra lucky to be a consultant for the World Bank Group’s Climate Change Division during the final two years of my degree, where I worked in the global practice office under Stephane Hallegatte and Florent McIsaac.
I did my undergraduate studies at the University of Arizona (UArizona), where I graduated with a B.S. in physics (with honors) and a B.S. in mathematics, along with a minor in astronomy and astrophysics. I worked on numerous projects during my undergraduate years, including projects related to understanding massive galaxy clusters, the fluid mechanics of the solar wind, and the inner horizon(s) of black holes. I won the Excellence in Undergraduate Research Award from the UArizona College of Science for my contributions to each of these fields.
I grew up in Buffalo, New York, an upbringing that prepared me well for the cold midwestern winters. In my spare time, I rock climb. A lot. I also play chess (poorly) and try to study it as often as I can. I enjoy reading, especially books on history, economics, and philosophy, as well as really, really corny self-help books. (Check out my book reviews if you’d like to learn more.) I also listen to way too many podcasts and music across a variety of genres (especially EDM). I also love sports, and closely follow college and professional football, as well as basketball and soccer.
