Brenda Ekwurzel is a climate scientist with the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). She is leading UCS's climate science education work aimed at strengthening support for sound U.S. climate policies. Prior to joining UCS, Dr. Ekwurzel was on the faculty of the University of Arizona Department of Hydrology and Water Resources with a joint appointment in the Geosciences Department. She has published on topics that include climate variability and fire, isotopic dating of groundwater, Arctic Ocean tracer oceanography, paleohydrology, and coastal sediment erosion.  Earlier in her career, Dr. Ekwurzel was a hydrologist, working with communities to protect groundwater sources, at the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection.

She holds a Ph.D. in isotope geochemistry from the Department of Earth Sciences at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and conducted post-doctoral research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in California.