Dr Will Howard was Lead Scientist at the Commonwealth Government Climate Change Authority from 2022 to July 2025 , working across climate science and adaptation, climate policy, negative emissions and other issues.

He got a Ph.D in Geological Sciences from Brown University in the USA, was a U.S. Department of Energy Global Change Distinguished Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia University, a lecturer in oceanography at the Sea Education Association in Woods Hole USA, a researcher at the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre.

He worked at the Office of the Chief Scientist in Canberra from 2010 to 2017, serving as Head of Science there in 2016-17.

In 2013-14, he initiated the Sedimentary Basin Management Initiative at University of Melbourne School of Earth Sciences, an integrated approach to understanding and managing sedimentary basins.

He is a member of the National Committee for Earth System Science.

He continues to research marine climate change, with particular emphasis on ocean acidification and its impacts on the past, current, and future ocean, through affiliation at Australian National University.

PhD