Studying the impacts of these cryosphere processes on society, and creating multi-disciplinary networks to develop cross-cutting ideas how to respond to, how to find solutions to these paramount climate-related challenges, has become a recent focus area of Schaefer’s work. Schaefer loves to teach science, and is leading the development of the new ‘Climate Science Major’ program at Columbia together with Prof. Suzana Camargo and the DEES curriculum committee. This program consists of three coordinated Climate Science Majors, one within DEES (‘Climate System Major’), one shared with the ‘Sustainable Development’ program (‘Climate and Civilization’) and one (‘Climate Physics and Chemistry’) shared with the department of ‘Applied Physics and Math (APAM)’. Schaefer is actively engaged in Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion efforts in US Geosciences, as well as in anti-harrassment and anti-bullying campaigns within the US science community.
Schaefer earned his Ph.D. in 2000 from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, his thesis awarded with the ETH medal prize. He was a postdoctoral researcher at ETH before joining Lamont as a postdoctoral research fellow in 2001.