Meet the inaugural Climate Science Serving America Visiting Scholars

Courtland Kelly's research focuses on reducing climate harm from the food and agriculture sector. She has expertise in soil carbon sequestration, nitrogen management, regenerative agriculture systems, and the measurement, reporting, and verification frameworks that underpin credible climate finance.

Her work at Project Drawdown will focus on generating decision-relevant evidence to support policy and market mechanisms that reduce food-system greenhouse gas emissions.

“I am committed to impactful science translation, and this is precisely what draws me to Project Drawdown’s model of pairing scientific excellence with strategic communication and stakeholder engagement,” Kelly says.

Kelly holds a B.A. in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in Ecology from Colorado State University.

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Tracey Osborne has more than two decades of experience working on climate change mitigation in tropical forests with a focus on carbon markets, forest conservation, and climate justice. Her research and fieldwork span tropical forests in Latin America, including co-developing a community-led climate and conservation project in the Ecuadorian Amazon. She founded the Carbon Justice Standard Lab, an initiative to advance high-quality, community-led climate and biodiversity projects and equitable finance systems. 

Her research will examine how social integrity, including community leadership, land tenure, governance, and Indigenous and local knowledge, shapes the effectiveness and durability of natural climate solutions. She will build the evidence base for community-led approaches and work to translate the research into practical insights for climate policy, philanthropy, and investment, while communicating the findings to a broader public audience.

“I’m thrilled to collaborate with Project Drawdown through its Nexus work on climate, nature, and people and to deepen the science on social integrity and the factors that contribute to the success of community-led natural climate solutions,” Osborne says.

Osborne holds a B.A. in English Literature from Wesleyan University, an M.S. in Food and Resource Economics from the University of Florida, and a Ph.D. in Energy and Resources Group from the University of California at Berkeley.

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Anna-Katharina von Krauland’s work has focused on turning energy research into actionable insights for policymakers, developers, and investors. For example, she accelerated wind deployment in the United States and India by creating wind energy atlases that cut siting timelines from months to hours by synthesizing technical, regulatory, and economic constraints.

As a visiting scholar, she’ll focus on quantifying and mapping the siting potential, land-use and interconnection constraints, and economic feasibility of next-generation energy resources across the United States. She'll also evaluate how to meet surging AI and data center loads responsibly, including opportunities for load flexibility, co-location with clean energy resources, and use of otherwise-curtailed renewable generation.

“The objective of my work is to decarbonize at scale by researching clean technologies that build a resilient, equitable, and sustainable grid,” von Krauland says.

Von Krauland holds a B.S. in Biological Engineering from Cornell University and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Stanford University.

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