Q&A with Mason Fried

Q: What do you do?

A: My team and I have developed a cloud-based platform to assess climate risks and develop practical solutions. ClimateSight® harnesses the latest climate science and analytics to develop custom future projections for climate and extreme weather hazards—for any location across the globe, at any time between now and the end of the century.

Q: Why is this important?

A: We’re at a critical point where climate change is rapidly accelerating and posing mounting physical risks to communities, infrastructure, and natural systems. And addressing these challenges is becoming harder and more complicated.

My work uses innovative technology to better understand the physical risks that climate change could pose over time from extreme heat, storms, wildfire, and other hazards. For example, my team and I recently used ClimateSight in an original research study that projects the potential exposure of disadvantaged communities across the country to future heatwaves days and how that may impact health and energy reliability.

We found that an additional 25 million people could be impacted, even in a moderate climate change scenario. By arming today’s leaders with actionable insights on tomorrow’s impacts, they can make faster, more informed decisions about changes in infrastructure, transportation, energy, housing—and help their communities build resilience to climate change.

It’s truly inspiring to be a part of this kind of impactful work. Plus, so many people have been talking about our research! It was featured in the Washington Post, ABC News, the LA Times, USA Today, and more.

Q: How did you look at this problem differently?

A: To meet climate change head on, we have to bring together the most advanced technology capabilities and incredibly deep industry expertise. In other words, once you’ve built a highly secure cloud environment that can import massive amounts of climate data, the true power of that data comes from what a climate scientist is able to do with it. Tech is the tool, but not the whole solution.

Using advanced cloud technology, I’m able to conduct more sophisticated analyses, perform interactive data analysis, and develop highly customized visualizations that clearly show risk and impact. This enables us to deliver real, tangible climate solutions much faster than ever before.

Q: How does this project connect to your purpose?

A: I came from academia, researching sea level rise and what drives ice sheet change. In fact, I used to do field work in Greenland and Antarctica, working with oceanographers and geophysicists to study how glaciers are changing and contributing to sea level rise. It’s cool (no pun intended!) to bring that background to the work I’m doing now to help clients and communities solve big world challenges.

As a scientist and data guy, I love applying process-oriented thinking and big data science and computing in our projects. But the world runs on narratives. And the results don't make an impact unless they’re communicated in a way that people can understand and make sense of. So that’s a challenge. Effectively communicating and bringing a human touch to our results is what helps bridge the gap between science and policy or science and engineering. And informs real-world decision making. That’s what’s most important.

And I love ICF’s creative spirit! I get to work with all kinds of people on multidisciplinary teams to deliver cutting-edge solutions that make a real difference. There’s nothing more inspiring than seeing a cloud practitioner work hand-in-hand with a climate scientist to develop a solution for the fundamental problem we are trying to solve for: building stronger climate resilience. It’s amazing what happens when you get diverse perspectives in the room to co-create. It keeps my job interesting and rewarding.