Diana Ürge-Vorsatz

Ürge-Vorsatz was a coordinating lead author of both the Fourth and Fifth Assessment Reports (AR4 and AR5) of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Early life

Diana Ürge-Vorsatz was born in 1968 in Berlin. She grew up in Budapest, where she attended Radnóti Miklós High School. From 1986 to 1992 Ürge-Vorsatz attended Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in Budapest, earning a master's degree in physics in 1992 with specialization in both Astrophysics and Environmental Physics. During this time, Ürge-Vorsatz also studied as a visiting student at Brunel University London from 1990 to 1991, where she took graduate courses in environmental pollution science and conducted research in environmental physics. In the summer of 1992, following her Master's graduation, Ürge-Vorsatz attended a post-grad program in Environmental Science at Central European University. She credits her switch in discipline from astrophysics to climate change as coming as an epiphany that occurred during a meeting on an unrelated topic, where she was suddenly struck by a "a strong feeling that she must focus on problems that are happening on Earth."

Ürge-Vorsatz was a Fulbright Scholar within the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Los Angeles and Berkeley. She earned her PhD in Environmental Science and Engineering from the University of California in 1996. Her dissertation is titled "Evaluating US Residential and Commercial Electricity Conservation Potentials: an Analysis of the Lighting Sector."