Sweta Chakraborty
President, US Operations & Executive Board Member, We Don't Have Time
Pronouns: she/her
Dr. Chakraborty is a globally recognized risk and behavioral scientist and expert on global risks ranging from climate change to COVID-19. She is a trusted authority on proactive preparedness to mitigate against the impacts of climate change, motivated by the need for clear, credible, evidence-based communication.
Sweta is the president of U.S. operations for We Don’t Have Time, a partner at Pioneer Public Affairs, and serves on the steering committee of the Global Commons Alliance alongside Johan Rockstrom. She is also an independent director at Lightbridge Corp. (NASDAQ: LTBR), where she chairs their environmental, social and governance (ESG) committee.
She is the key behavioral scientist at Resilience Action Partners (an Ogilvy and Michael Baker joint enterprise) for a $250 million (CERC 2.0) FEMA contract to address US-wide adaptation to climate change impacts. She is also the founder and principal of Adapt to Thrive, a venture that seeks to better inform entities on the complex, interconnected challenges already existing and emerging from a warming planet. She has worked in the private sector as chief scientist for a risk management-consulting firm, has taught at Columbia University as an adjunct professor, and is the head of Top Tier Impact’s Policy Action Unit.
Sweta is a TEDx and SXSW featured speaker, most recently alongside Nikolaj Coster-Waldau for the UNDP’s #dontchooseextinction campaign, and is regularly interviewed on major, international news media outlets including CNN, the NYT, the BBC, Forbes, Fox News Channel, Sky News, CBS, NowThis, MSNBC to name a few. She has appeared on networks like Nickelodeon and Discovery+, where she was featured alongside Kamala Harris for an Earth Day 2021 special.
Sweta has written extensively in peer-reviewed journals, is a book author from her time as a postdoc at Oxford University, and is currently working on her second book on adaptation to global risks. She has built her career around how to connect science, media and policy to change attitudes, empower audiences, and inspire action alongside celebrities like Questlove and Joaquin Phoenix.
She is a 2019/2020 Millennium Fellow at The Atlantic Council, and serves on the boards of the New York Academy of Sciences, Climate Power, Earth HQ, Serendipity Foundation, America Adapts and We Don’t Have Time.
In 2022, she launched “House of Scientista” a not-for-profit with the purpose to empower women and underrepresented groups to pursue careers in STEM. House of Scientista is where fashion and science come together to support the next generation of women scientists.
Thematic Photo by Austin Distel