Eric Rignot

Biography

Eric Rignot, Ph.D., is Donald Bren Professor, Chancellor's Professor, and Distinguished Professor of Earth System Science at the University of California, Irvine, and Senior Research Scientist at Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He received a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California in 1991. Rignot has spent over three decades studying ice sheet dynamics, glacier motion, and ice-ocean interactions in Antarctica, Greenland, and Patagonia using satellite radar interferometry, airborne surveys, and oceanographic observations.

Rignot was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 2018 and the National Academy of Engineering in 2025. He is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has been named a Thomson Reuters Highly Cited Researcher in Geosciences annually from 2014 through 2025. Rignot received the Louis Agassiz Medal from the European Geosciences Union in 2016 and delivered the William Bowie Lecture at the American Geophysical Union in 2008. He served as Chair of the Department of Earth System Science at UC Irvine from 2017 to 2021.

Rignot has led numerous field expeditions to polar regions, including serving as Deputy Lead for NASA's Oceans Melting Greenland mission and Science Lead for NASA's Operation IceBridge. He has mentored 15 Ph.D. students and 18 postdoctoral researchers who have gone on to faculty positions and research careers at institutions worldwide. Rignot has published over 280 peer-reviewed articles with more than 45,000 citations and an h-index of 101. He has contributed to multiple Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment reports and served on numerous national and international committees, including the National Academies' Committee on Earth Science and Applications from Space.

Education

• Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, University of Southern California, 1991
• M.Sc. in Aerospace Engineering, University of Southern California, 1988
• M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering, University of Southern California, 1987
• M.Sc. in Astronomy, University of Paris VI Pierre et Marie Curie, 1986
• Engineer Degree, Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, 1985