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Keywan Riahi is the Director of the Energy, Climate and Environment (ECE) Program at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). In addition, he lectures as a Visiting Professor of Energy Systems Analysis at the Graz University of Technology and he has joined the Payne Institute of the Colorado School of Mines as a Fellow. He also serves as an External Faculty Member at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) at the University of Amsterdam.

Dr. Riahi has ample experience in interdisciplinary research of climate change response options, working with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and providing policy advice at the international as well as national level. In 2020, he was ranked first by Reuters as the most influential climate scientist worldwide and in 2021, he was recognized by Clarivate as one of 23 researchers worldwide in the list of Highly Cited Researchers in three categories: Geosciences; Social Sciences; and Environment and Ecology. In 2021, UN Secretary General Guterres appointed him to the 10-Member Group to advise the UN on the Technology Facilitation Mechanism for the implementation of the Agenda 2030.

His key scientific achievements comprise the coordination and development of the so-called Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) and the Shared Socioeconomic pathways (SSPs), which have facilitated the integrated analysis of climate change response options across the entire scientific community (Riahi et al., 2017). He plays a leading role in the scientific community as a member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC) and the International Committee on New Integrated Climate Change Assessment Scenarios (ICONICS), where he is responsible for the coordination and co-design of flagship research activities across the research community.

He has been appointed to the Earth Commission Working Group I on the Earth and Human System Modelling Inter-comparison Project (EHSMIP) and also serves as the Coordinating Lead Author in Working Group III of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6, Chapter 3 on Mitigation pathways compatible with long-term goals).

Additional scientific highlights include serving as Lead Author to various international assessments, such as the Global Energy Assessment (GEA), The World in 2050 (TWI2050), and various IPCC reports, including the IPCC's Third, Fourth, and Fifth Assessment Reports, as well as the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES), the IPCC Special Report on CO2 Capture and Storage (SRCCS), and as review editor on the IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy (SRREN).

At the European scale, he received the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Synergy Grant for the GENIE Project, focusing on new methods and technologies for carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere. Additional research highlights, among others, include the EU funded Exploring National and Global Actions to reduce Greenhouse gas Emissions (ENGAGE) Project and the successfully completed Linking Climate and Development Policies-Leveraging International Networks and Knowledge Sharing (CD-LINKS) Project. In March 2022, he was also appointed to the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change, which provides scientific advice to underpin climate action and efforts by the EU to reach climate neutrality by 2050.

He serves on the editorial boards of Nature Energy, Energies, Energy Review Strategies, and the Global Transitions Journal. He has authored more than 190 peer-reviewed articles.