13 Facts About Chris Rapley

Christopher Graham Rapley was born on 8 April 1947 and is a British scientist and scientific administrator.

Chris Rapley is Professor of Climate Science at University College London, a member of the Academia Europaea, Chair of the European Science Foundation's European Space Sciences Committee, Patron of the Surrey Climate Commission, a member of the scientific advisory board of Scientists Warning, a member of the UK Clean Growth Fund Advisory Board, and a member of the UK Parliamentary and Scientific Committee.

Chris Rapley married Norma Khan in 1970 and they have twin daughters, Emma Jane and Charlotte Anne.

Chris Rapley was instrument scientist for the Bent Crystal Spectrometer and Flat Crystal Spectrometer detector package flown on NASA's Solar Maximum Mission as part of the X-Ray Polychromator provided by UCL MSSL, LMSC and the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

Between 1975 and 1981, Chris Rapley was a scientist on NASA's Solar Maximum Mission, and was then a lecturer at the Department of Space and Climate Physics of University College London from 1981 to 1987.

Chris Rapley was professor of Remote Sensing Science at University College London from 1991 to 1997.

Chris Rapley led numerous ESA-funded studies on the use of radar altimeters to study Earth's polar ice, land and inland water, underpinning the ESA Earth Observation satellite series ERS-1, ERS-2, and Envisat.

Chris Rapley was Director of the British Antarctic Survey from 1998 to 2007.

Chris Rapley became a Fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge in 1999.

Chris Rapley is Chair of the UCL Policy Commission on Communicating Climate Science and Chair of the advisory board to the UCL Climate Action Unit.

Chris Rapley agreed to sit for Jon Edgar in Fittleworth during 2009 as part of the sculptor's environmental series of heads.

Chris Rapley co-wrote a one-man play 2071 with playwright Duncan Macmillan, which he performed at London's Royal Court Theatre in November 2014, continuing to Hamburg and Brussels.

In October 2021 Chris Rapley resigned from the Science Museum Group's Scientific Advisory Board over the issue of gallery and exhibit sponsorship by oil and gas companies, citing; "The reality of the climate crisis, the need to abolish fossil fuels as quickly as possible, and analyses such as the recent Carbon Tracker Report which bring into question the commitment of the oil and gas companies to do so".