Ben Poulter, Ph.D.

Ben Poulter, PhD, leads Spark's Warming Induced Emissions program, combining his expertise in Earth system science, greenhouse-gas accounting, and program coordination to accelerate research and policy in this area.

A key aspect in Ben's approach to Earth science is collaboration and partnerships; essential for developing an impactful systems thinking approaches to advance climate science and policy. In 2024, Ben worked for the Biden Administration as Deputy Director of the White House Office on Greenhouse Gas Measurements, Monitoring, Reporting and Verification in the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). In that role, he helped coordinate a federal inter-agency response to integrate and improve greenhouse gas measurement standards, monitoring and reporting and to develop new public-private-philanthropic partnerships. At the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (2016-2025), Ben led a team of scientists developing the LPJ-EOSIM model, field campaigns (BlueFlux and ARID) and served as Project Scientist for the satellite missions CarbonFOX and SBG. These projects engaged with the public through NASA initiatives such as Earth to Sky, the Applied Remote Sensing Training Program, and NASA's Earth Observatory web stories. Ben was co-chair for the US Global Change Research Program's Greenhouse Gas Interagency Working Group and co-lead for the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) supporting activities to the Paris Agreement. He is actively engaged with the North American Carbon Program (NACP) and the 3rd US Carbon Cycle Science Plan, as well as international initiatives including Future Earth's Global Carbon Project (GCP) and the Integrated Land Ecosystem-Atmosphere Process Study (iLEAPS). Through these he served as contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 5th and 6th Assessment Reports, co-author on the Fifth National Climate Assessment, and co-lead for the Global Methane Budget and the second REgional Carbon Cycle Assessment and Processes study (RECCAP2).

He received his PhD from Duke University in 2005, and has worked at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), the Swiss Federal Research Institute (WSL) and the Laboratory for Climate and Environmental Science in Paris (LSCE).

He is an keen naturalist and photographer, contributing bird and plant lists to various citizen science databases.

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