 Hawkins is a professor of climate science at the University of Reading, where he is Academic Lead for Public Engagement and is affiliated with the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS).He is a lead for Weather Rescue and Rainfall Rescue, citizen science projects in which volunteers transcribe data from historical meteorological and rainfall records for digital analysis.Hawkins was a contributing author for the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (2014) and is a lead author for the IPCC 6th Assessment Report.