Christoph J.
Meinrenken, PhD
Professor of Practice, Faculty of Professional Studies
Principal Investigator, Columbia Climate School
Affiliate, Data Science Institute
Columbia University
PhD, Physics (Max Planck Institute & University of
Heidelberg)
M.Sc.Eng. (Princeton University)
Bachelor’s, double major in physics and mathematics (University of Heidelberg)
Publications | Please see full list in Google Scholar
Curriculum Vitae | Public version of my Full CV
Projects | Please see Curriculum Vitae and details at bottom of Bio & Projects
Affiliations
§ Member, International Organization for Standardization (ISO) joint technical working group (JWG8) on product carbon footprinting rules (2026 onwards)
§ Member, Editorial Board, Nature Scientific Data (2025 – present)
§ Member, GHG Protocol working group on scope 3 GHG accounting rules (2024 - 2026)
§ Affiliate, Data Science Institute
§ Co-chair, Columbia University Seminar on Complexity Science, Modeling, and Sustainability
§ Member, American Physical Society
§ Member, International Society for Industrial Ecology
Select authored public datasets
§ MFRED, 10 sec interval real & reactive power in 390 US apartments of varying size/vintage, incl. Covid-19 impacts, Harvard Dataverse (2023)
§ The Carbon Catalogue, 866 product carbon footprints from 8 industry sectors and 5 continents, Nature Scientific Data (2022)
Select awards & recognitions
§ Future AI Leaders Program, A.I. Summit New York (2025)
§ Visiting Scholar, American Academy in Rome (2016 - 2017)
§ Finalist, Verizon Powerful Answers, 30 out of 1,400 global applicants (2013)
§ Fellow, Max Planck Society, full stipend to pursue PhD studies and research (1998 - 2001)
§ Guggenheim Merit Scholarship for studies at Princeton University (1994 - 1995)
§ Scholar of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation ("Studienstiftung") (1992 - 1996)
Select media mentions
§ Cardiovascular Research Foundation Footprint of Surgical AVR Double the Size of TAVI’s (2025)
§ Washington Post What does it mean for a hotel to be carbon neutral? (2022)
§ Washington Post For a sweltering petrostate, a ‘carbon neutral’ World Cup is a challenge (2022)
§ World Economic Forum Net-Zero Challenge: The supply chain opportunity (2021)
§ New York Times The City That Never Sleeps Is Waking Up Later (2020)
§ NPR Summer Heat Amid the Pandemic Raises Concerns About More Blackouts and Brownouts (2020)
§ Wall Street Journal Online Shopping: How to Beat the System (2019)
§ Sustainable Brands The World’s First Data Visualization of Product Carbon Footprints (2019)
§ Archinect "Indoor City" installation explores dissolving spatial boundaries in an era of climate change (2017)
§ Harvard Business Review A New Algorithm for Fast Carbon Footprinting (2012)