Kilaparti Ramakrishna, a lawyer by training, has devoted much of his teaching and research career to the interactions of law, science, and politics. He was appointed Deputy Director of the Woods Hole Research Center by its Board of Trustees in 1995. He currently holds the Sara Shallenberger Brown Chair in Environmental Policy at the Woods Hole Research Center. He also has been a Visiting Professor of International Law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University since 1993. He served as a Special Advisor to the United Nations in drafting the Framework Convention on Climate Change.

In addition to global warming and climate change issues, he has contributed extensively in a variety of fields including: trends in national and international decision making, legal and institutional framework for alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, creation and management of marine sanctuaries, and conservation and utilization of world forests and biodiversity. He was instrumental in helping establish an independent World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development, and served as its Coordinator from 1992-1995. He also served as Chief, Division of Implementation and Communication at the Secretariat for the Convention on Biological Diversity in 1998.

Dr. Ramakrishna served as the President of the Woods Hole Chapter of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society in 1996. He currently serves on the Editorial Boards of the Review of European Community & International Environmental Law (RECIEL), London, U.K.; Global Change, Oakland, California; and IISD's Linkages Journal, Winnipeg, Canada. In addition he serves on the Boards of Directors of the Consensus Building Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts and the New England Forestry Foundation. He is a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science, a member of the IUCN's Commission on Environmental Law and the Council on Foreign Relations.