Sylvia Dee is an assistant professor and climate scientist at Rice University specializing in climate change and the past, present, and future of Earth’s hydrological cycle. She completed her undergraduate degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering with certificates in Geological Engineering and Environmental Sciences at Princeton University, and her Ph.D. at the University of Southern California Earth Sciences department. She previously held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics and Brown University. She was named a National Academies of Science and Engineering Gulf Research Program Early-Career Research Fellow in 2021 for her work on climate change impacts on the Gulf of Mexico.

Sylvia’s research focuses on how Earth’s modes of natural variability, like El Niño and La Niña events, compound with climate change to alter the characteristics of weather and climate extremes, such as flooding hazard on the Mississippi River. Her lab evaluates climate model data to understand future risks to human and natural systems.

Sylvia teaches courses in environment and society, introduction to climate change science, paleoclimate, and climate physics and modeling.

Outside of Rice, Sylvia regularly leads environmental science programming for the Girl Scouts of the USA, work for which she was recently honored with the “Global Leadership Award,” by the Girl Scouts of New England. She is a regular contributor to media coverage on climate change including via NPR, AccuWeather, and the Houston Chronicle. Sylvia loves working with Rice undergraduates to find solutions to environmental problems.

NOTE: Dr. Dee does not consider GRE scores as part of her admission criteria and would prefer that prospective graduate students DO NOT submit these scores as part of their applications.