Friederike Otto

Friederike Otto is a Senior Lecturer in Climate Science at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment, Imperial College London, and holds an appointment in the Centre for Environmental Policy within the Faculty of Natural Sciences. Previously, she served as director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford before joining Imperial in 2021. Her research focuses on extreme weather events, particularly their attribution to climate change, and she co-leads the World Weather Attribution (WWA) initiative, which rapidly analyzes climate influences on extreme weather. Otto earned a doctorate in philosophy of science from the Free University Berlin in 2011.

Her work contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report and Synthesis Report (2023). She has been recognized with prestigious awards, including TIME100 (2021) and the German Environment Prize (2023). Her book Angry Weather explores climate change's societal impacts, and her findings have been featured in major media outlets like the New York Times and BBC.

Research interests span extreme weather attribution, climate litigation, biodiversity-climate interactions, and policy implications of climate science. Otto’s work bridges scientific analysis with legal frameworks, emphasizing actionable insights for adaptation and loss-and-damage mechanisms. She advocates for equitable climate policies that prioritize human rights over commercial interests.

Key affiliations include the Grantham Institute and WWA, with collaborations across international institutions. Her interdisciplinary approach integrates climate science, law, and public engagement to address global challenges. Current projects focus on real-time attribution methods, climate risk financing, and regional climate resilience strategies.