Joyce E. Penner, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences at the University of Michigan. She is a leading expert on the interactions of chemistry, aerosols, and their effects on the climate system. She has published in more than 110 peer-reviewed publications in scientific literature and most recently focused on understanding the effects of anthropogenic aerosols on climate. She was nominated by the U.S. government and chosen to lead a chapter entitled "Aerosols, their direct and indirect effects" for the 2001 climate change assessment carried out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Prior to joining the University of Michigan, Penner developed simplified treatments for the sulfur cycle within a global climate model and used this model to quantify the climate forcing and climate response from anthropogenic sulfate aerosols. This work has had a major effect in understanding how climate has changed over the last 100 years. She joined the University of Michigan faculty in 1996.

Her current research continues to attempt to add more realistic estimates for the effects of aerosols in climate models and has recently been extended to include the first mechanistic studies that treat the indirect forcing by anthropogenic sulfate as well as carbonaceous aerosols. Her studies also include the first study of the effects of carbonaceous aerosols on the lifetime and precipitation efficiency of clouds. She also recently led a model study that evaluated the differences between satellite-derived estimates of aerosol forcing and model-derived estimates.