H. J. Schellnhuber is the Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).

Born in 1950 in Ortenburg, Germany. Training in physics and mathematics with a scholarship for the highly gifted at the University of Regensburg. Doctorate in Theoretical Physics in 1980. Various periods of research abroad, in particular at several institutions of the University of California system (USA). Habilitation (German qualification for professorial status) in 1985, then Heisenberg Fellowship. 1989 Full Professor at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Marine and Environmental Sciences (ICBM) at the University of Oldenburg, later Director of the ICBM. 1991 Founding Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). Since 1993, Director of PIK and Professor for Theoretical Physics at the University of Potsdam. Since January 2001 also Visiting Research Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and Professor at the Environmental Sciences School of the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK.

Elected Member of Max Planck Society, Leibniz Society and Geological Society of London. Active service on some dozen national and international panels for scientific strategies and policy advice regarding environment & development matters. I.a., Member of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), Chairman of the GAIM Task Force of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), Coordinating Lead Author of the synthesis chapter of Working Group II in the Third IPCC Assessment Report. More than 150 articles and books on solid state physics, the theory of complex non-linear systems, coastal zone research, and regional and global environmental analysis.