Ding Ma is a climate dynamicist whose research seeks to better understand and predict the behavior of the global climate system. His primary focus is on the variability of large-scale atmospheric circulation and its relationship to weather extremes. Recently, he has concentrated on the response of circulation variability to climate change, a dimension of climate science that has historically received less attention.

At DKU, he has broadened his research beyond the physical climate system to examine how climate-driven changes influence ecological and social systems. Working with colleagues across DKU and Duke University, he investigates the downstream effects of the changing physical climate on ecological and societal frameworks. His current projects include analyzing the influence of climate change on bird migration patterns and researching climate economics to optimize sustainable development budgets.

Ding Ma’s research has been published in Nature Communications, Geophysical Research Letters, Journal of Climate, and Journal of Atmospheric Sciences. He holds a Ph.D. in Climate Dynamics from Harvard University, a B.A. in Physics from Peking University, and previously served as an Earth Institute Fellow at Columbia University. He teaches environmental science and physics.