Robert Muir-Wood is the chief research officer for Risk Management Solutions, the largest international catastrophe modeling company, with more than 1000 personnel, developing probabilistic models for natural catastrophe perils (as well as pandemic and terrorism risks), which are used by insurers worldwide. He has twenty years experience of leading projects to develop probabilistic catastrophe models for a wide range of climate and earthquake perils, was a lead author for the IPCC 4th Assessment Report and the IPCC Special Report on Extremes and was a technical advisor to the US 2014 Risky Business Study for quantifying the expected economic impacts of climate change in the US where he also supervised work to model the impacts of sea level rise and changes in hurricane activity on coastal losses. As part of the preparation for the new 2015 Sustainable Development Goals he has also worked on how probabilistic catastrophe modeling can be employed for setting baselines and measuring progress for disaster risk reduction, using a range of metrics including loss of lives and livelihoods. He earned a 1st class degree in natural sciences and a Ph.D. in earth sciences from Cambridge University.