While traveling to Europe, Asia, and Africa as a graduate student, Melody Braun saw the effects that climate change was already having on vulnerable communities, and she realized that she wanted to work closely with these communities. Now she is a senior research staff associate at the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) at Columbia’s Earth Institute. She is also one of the six country leads on a project called Adapting Agriculture to Climate Today, For Tomorrow (ACToday), which is led by IRI and supported by Columbia World Projects.