Walter E. Baethgen

Walter E. Baethgen is a retired Senior Research Scientist at Columbia University, where he was affiliated from 2004 until his retirement. During his tenure at Columbia University, he served as Acting Director and Leader of the Regional and Sectoral Research Program at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), and as Acting Director of the Agriculture and Food Security Center at The Earth Institute. In 2020, he was appointed Vice-President of the Board of Directors of INIA (Instituto Nacional de Investigación Agropecuaria, Uruguay's National Agricultural Research Institute).

Dr. Baethgen’s scholarly contributions center on the development of regional research and education programs aimed at advancing climate risk assessment and management across agriculture, water resources, and natural ecosystems. From 2011 to 2013, he was the Distinguished Lead Scholar of the Fulbright Foundation’s NEXUS Program.

Prior to his appointment at Columbia, Dr. Baethgen served as Senior Scientist in the Research and Development Division of the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC), where he led work on Information and Decision Support Systems for the Agricultural Sector (1987–2003).

Dr. Baethgen has extensive experience as an international consultant, advising the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and multiple United Nations agencies (UNDP, UNIDO, FAO, and IAEA), as well as the Inter-American Institute for Agricultural Cooperation (IICA), and numerous governmental and private-sector entities across Latin America. He contributed as an author to the IPCC Second, Third, and Fourth Assessment Reports and was a member of the IPCC team awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

He has served on scientific advisory committees of leading international organizations, including CGIAR, IAI, IGBP, and WMO, and has acted as an external reviewer for research programs funded by NOAA, NASA, NSF, IAI, and the governments of Germany, Norway, and Austria.

Dr. Baethgen holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Crop and Soil Environmental Sciences from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and a B.Sc. in Agricultural Engineering from the Universidad de la República, Uruguay. He is the author of more than 150 peer-reviewed publications.

Updated June 26, 2026