Rate My Professor Josephine Brown

Josephine Brown, Associate Professor in Paleoclimate Modelling at the University of Melbourne's School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences in the Faculty of Science, specializes in understanding past, present, and future tropical climate variability and change. Her research focuses on monsoons, the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), tropical rainfall, and convergence zones. Utilizing advanced global climate models like ACCESS-ESM1.5 and those from CMIP6, she investigates climate changes across diverse timescales, including the period since the Last Glacial Maximum, Pliocene analogues for future warming, and future projections by comparing paleoclimate simulations. Brown completed her PhD at the University of Melbourne in 2004. She then undertook postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Reading, UK (2004-2006), and Monash University (2006-2009).

From 2009 to 2019, Brown worked as a Research Scientist at the Bureau of Meteorology, playing a key role in developing climate projections for Australia and Pacific Island nations. She joined the University of Melbourne in March 2019 as a Lecturer in Palaeoclimate Modelling and advanced to Associate Professor. As a member of the Climate Variability and Change research group, she contributes to collaborative efforts with organizations such as the National Environmental Science Program Climate Systems Hub and the Centre of Excellence for Weather of the 21st Century. Brown serves as Chief Investigator for the ARC Centre of Excellence for 21st Century Weather and as Associate Editor for the Journal of Southern Hemisphere Earth Systems Science. Notable publications include "Climate Stabilisation Under Net Zero CO2 Emissions" (Earth’s Future, 2025), "What Drives Interannual Rainfall Variability Over Northern Australia?" (2025), "The impacts of an AMOC slowdown on Southern Hemisphere and Australian climates at 8.2 ka in ACCESS-ESM1.5 model" (Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, 2025), and "Evolution of Heat Extremes Under Net-Zero CO2 Emissions" (Earth’s Future, 2025). Her research significantly impacts the field by enhancing predictions of tropical climate dynamics and supporting regional climate policy.