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Toward an Integrated Arctic Observing Network (2006)

Chapter: Appendix B Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix B Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2006. Toward an Integrated Arctic Observing Network. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11607.
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B
Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff

W. Berry Lyons (Committee Chair) is the Director of the Byrd Polar Research Center at The Ohio State University and a Professor in the Department of Geological Sciences. Dr. Lyons received his Ph.D. in Chemical Oceanography from University of Connecticut in 1979. His research interests include the investigation of the biogeochemistry of trace metals, especially mercury, in the environment, the use of various chemical techniques to evaluate and describe climate and environmental change, and the understanding of the relationship between chemical weathering, tectonics, and human activity. He is currently the lead Principal Investigator (PI) for the National Science Foundation (NSF’s) McMurdo Dry Valleys Long-Term Ecological Research project in Antarctica.


Keith Alverson is the director of the Global Ocean Observing System program office and head of operational management and sustainable development of the open and coastal ocean at the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO based in Paris, France. He received his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University in 1988 and Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography from the M.I.T.-Woods Hole Joint Program in 1995. Dr. Alverson has participated in several ocean field expeditions, including to the Arctic and Antarctic, and carried out modeling, statistical and synthesis studies in physical oceanography and paleoclimatology. He was previously director of the Past Global Changes project of the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme.


David Barber is a Canada Research Chair in Arctic System Science at the University of Manitoba. Dr. Barber focuses his research on improving knowledge of physical and biological processes operating within the ocean-sea ice-atmosphere system and to developing tools that will allow predictions of changes within this system.


James G. Bellingham is the Director of Engineering at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. He received his Ph.D. in Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1988. Dr. Bellingham’s personal research interests revolve around the development and use of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs). In the process of developing these vehicles, he spent considerable time at sea, leading over 20 AUV expeditions in locations such as the Arctic, North Atlantic, Mediterranean, South Pacific, and the Antarctic. Presently he is engaged in the development of distributed ocean observing systems, which are composed of heterogeneous mixes of mobile and fixed observation elements, often coupled to real-time ocean modeling systems. Dr. Bellingham is the co-founder of Bluefin Robotics Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AUVs for the military, commercial, and scientific markets.


Terry V. Callaghan is Professor of Arctic Ecology in the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences at the University of Sheffield, UK and the Department of Ecology at Lund University, Sweden. He is concurrently Director of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ Abisko Scientific Research Station in the Swedish sub-Arctic. Professor Callaghan was awarded a Ph.D. in 1972 for research on plant ecology in the sub-Antarctic and Arctic, and since then has been awarded honorary Ph.D.s by Lund University, Sweden (1992) and Oulu University, Finland (2002), as well as a D.Sc. by Manchester University, UK (1992). He was elected as member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (2002). He is interested in arctic plant ecology and particularly in responses of arctic ecosystems to changes in climate and UV-B radiation. Professor Callaghan has worked in every arctic country and has spent part of almost each of the past 38 years in the Arctic. He is the chair of the SCANNET network of 14 North Atlantic research and monitoring infrastructures, and European co-chair of CEON (Circumarctic Environmental Observatories Network). He was lead author of the Terrestrial Ecosystems chapter of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment and leads or contributes to many international research and monitoring initiatives focusing on arctic terrestrial ecosystems.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2006. Toward an Integrated Arctic Observing Network. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11607.
×

Lee W. Cooper is a Research Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee. He received his Ph.D. in Oceanography from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks in 1987 following undergraduate and graduate work at the University of California, Santa Cruz and the University of Washington. His research interests include biogeochemical cycling in high-latitude ecosystems through the use of isotopic and elemental tracers. He has extensive polar shipboard research experience on all three current U.S. Coast Guard icebreakers, including chief scientist coordinating multidisciplinary research programs in 1993, 2002, and 2004. He is also lead principal investigator for the Bering Strait Environmental Observatory, which involves local subsistence hunters in collection of samples and pilot-scale continuous seawater pumping operations in Bering Strait from Little Diomede Island. Dr. Cooper is chair of an international Russian-U.S. research science steering committee facilitating collaborative bi-national research in the Russian Arctic and he also participates as the U.S. delegate in an International Arctic Science Committee working group that exchanges information with other arctic countries on multinational research efforts in the Russian Arctic. Among his other recent activities was the lead role in editing the Land-Shelf Interactions science plan that provided guidance to the NSF on key coastal research priorities in the Arctic.


Margo Edwards is a Senior Research Scientist at the University of Hawaii and Director of the Hawaii Mapping Research Group. She received her Ph.D. in Marine Geology and Geophysics from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University in 1992. Dr. Edwards’ specializes in using acoustic and optical systems to map and image the seafloor throughout the world’s oceans, focusing primarily on mid-ocean ridge systems and the Arctic Basin. Her research covers a broad spectrum of topics ranging from modeling the mechanics of volcanic eruptions in the deep ocean to unraveling paleoclimatic histories recorded in sediments of the Arctic Ocean. She has participated in dozens of oceanographic expeditions, and as chief scientist of the 1999 Science Ice Exercises became the first woman to sail onboard a U.S. Navy nuclear-powered submarine during an operation. Dr. Edwards presently serves as chair of the Arctic Ice-breaker Coordinating Committee of the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System.


Shari Gearheard is a Research Associate at the University of McGill and University of Western Ontario, Canada. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow hosted by Harvard University in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Postdoctoral Program in Climate and Global Change. For over a decade, Dr. Gearheard has worked with Inuit communities in Nunavut, Canada, on a variety of environmental issues and research topics—in particular, Inuit knowledge of climate and environmental change. Dr. Gearheard (nee Fox) was co-lead author of Chapter 3 (“The Changing Arctic: Indigenous Perspectives”) of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment and was part of the Coastal Working Group for ICARP II. Dr. Gearheard received her MES in Environmental Studies from the University of Waterloo, Canada and her Ph.D. from the Department of Geography/Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, at the University of Colorado at Boulder.


Molly McCammon is the Executive Director of the Alaska Ocean Observing System—the Alaska component of the U.S. Integrated Ocean Observing System—as well as the co-chair of the National Federation of Regional Associations for Ocean Observing. Ms. McCammon received her B.A. in Journalism from the University of California at Berkeley. She has more than 25 years of experience in Alaska natural resource management and policy development. Her past experience includes a decade as the Executive Director for the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, administering the restoration fund established as a result of a court settlement between the U.S. government and the state of Alaska and Exxon Corporation following the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. During her tenure at the Trustee Council, she helped establish the Gulf Ecosystem Monitoring Program—a permanently endowed, long-term ecological monitoring program for the northern Gulf of Alaska.


Jamie Morison is a research professor at the University of Washington. His main research focus is the study of environmental change in the Arctic. He heads the project office for the multi-government agencies’ Study of Environmental Arctic Change program. In addition, he has spent the last three springs in the vicinity of the North Pole directing hydrographic analysis of ocean conditions for the North Pole Environmental Observatory program. Another aspect of his research has used AUVs to study turbulent vertical velocity and fluxes of heat and salt in the Arctic Ocean. He also served as University of Washington Representative to the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States (ARCUS), 1995-97; member ASA/NSF Antarctic Research Vessel Oversight Committee, 1995-98; member ARCUS Logistics Working Group, 1997-98; member NSF-Office of Polar Program Advisory Committee, 1997-99; member Polar Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences, 1997-2000.


Scott E. Palo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research at the University of Colorado. He specializes in upper atmosphere research and he has significant hardware, data analysis, and data systems experience. The central overarching thrust of his research is to understand how both free and forced planetary-scale disturbances are generated in the Earth’s atmosphere and how they effect the dynamics, thermal structure and composition of the

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2006. Toward an Integrated Arctic Observing Network. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11607.
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coupled mesosphere-thermosphere-ionosphere system (ca. 50-400 km). Dr. Palo’s active areas of research are: development, construction, and deployment of an inexpensive, portable, autonomous meteor radar system; use of a global circulation model to understand how planetary-scale disturbances interact in a coupled nonlinear atmosphere; understanding the complex sampling/aliasing relationships that occur when low Earth orbiting satellites are used to measure atmospheric parameters associated with planetary-scale disturbances; and analysis of observations, both ground and space based, of atmospheric parameters associated with planetary-scale disturbances in the mesosphere-thermosphere-ionosphere.


Andrey Proshutinsky is a Senior Scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He received his Ph.D. in Physical Oceanography at the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, Russia, in 1980. Dr. Proshutinsky’s research interests include: climate change, physical oceanography, and numerical modeling of ice and water dynamics. He has investigated Arctic Ocean circulation regimes, tides, storm surges, and navigation conditions along the Northern Sea Route. Dr. Proshutinsky is a member of the Polar Climate, Climate Variability, and National Center for Atmospheric Research Climate System Model working groups and he is a PI of the international Arctic Ocean Model Intercomparison project. He is a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Arctic Research Coordinator and is involved in design, development, and implementation of drifting ice-based arctic observatories.


Lars-Otto Reiersen is the Executive Secretary of Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program. In this capacity, he runs the contaminants monitoring and assessment work under the Arctic Council. He has extensive experience in creating integrated monitoring programs around the Arctic and, in particular, the monitoring needs for arctic contaminants and climate.


Vladimir E. Romanovsky is an Associate Professor of Geophysics in the Geophysical Institute and Geology and Geophysics Department with the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. He received his Ph.D. in Geology at the Moscow State University, Russia, in 1982. He also received Ph.D. in Geophysics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 1996. He is involved in research in permafrost geophysics, with particular emphasis on the ground thermal regime, active layer and permafrost processes, and the relationships between permafrost, hydrology, biota, and climate. He is also examining the scientific and practical aspects of environmental and engineering problems involving ice and permafrost, subsea permafrost, seasonally frozen ground, and seasonal snow cover. Dr. Romanovsky is also interested in the improvement of mathematical methods (analytical and numerical modeling) in geology and geophysics.


Peter Schlosser is the Vinton Professor of Earth and Environmental Engineering and professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University and senior research scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. He also is the associate director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He received his Ph.D. in Physics at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, in 1985. Dr. Schlosser’s research interests include studies of water movement and its variability in natural systems (oceans, lakes, rivers, groundwater) using natural and anthropogenic trace substances and isotopes as “dyes” or as “radioactive clocks”; ocean/atmosphere gas exchange; reconstruction of continental paleotemperature records using groundwater as an archive; and anthropogenic impacts on natural systems. He participated in seven major ocean expeditions, five to the polar regions. He was or presently is a member or chair of national and international science steering committees, including the World Ocean Circulation Experiment, the Climate Variability and Predictability Experiment, the World Climate Research Program, the Surface Ocean Lower Atmosphere Study, and the Study of Environmental Arctic Change.


Julienne C. Stroeve is a Research Scientist II with the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Her research interests include cryosphere-climate interactions, polar climatology, optical and microwave remote sensing of snow and sea ice, atmospheric and snow/ice radiative transfer modeling, and digital image processing. Dr. Stroeve is a member of the Program for Arctic Regional Climate Assessment. Her current research projects include monitoring trends in surface albedo and surface temperature from satellite data over Greenland; examining causes for recent thinning in the ablation regions of the Greenland ice sheet; development of algorithms to derive snow albedo from satellite instruments; cross-calibration of passive microwave satellites to produce consistent time series of ice extent and ice-covered areas; sensitivity studies of the effects of satellite incidence angles and atmospheric effects on ice concentrations derived from passive microwave instruments using different sea ice algorithms; and surface temperature over snow- or ice-covered surfaces and mountainous terrain from infrared satellite data.


Craig Tweedie is an Assistant Professor with the Department of Biology and the Environmental Science and Engineering Program at The University of Texas at El Paso. Dr. Tweedie also co-chairs CEON, a network of terrestrial and freshwater observation platforms, science experts, and network partners promoting the collection of environmental data from the Arctic. CEON’s mission is to strengthen the capacity for emerging monitoring, research and policy needs at high northern latitudes by making data available that are adequate and suitable for answering and addressing a series of well-defined key scientific questions and uncertainties. Dr. Tweedie also conducts research focused on land cover change and the impact this has on terrestrial ecosystem struc-

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2006. Toward an Integrated Arctic Observing Network. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11607.
×

ture and function in the north Alaskan and Beringian Arctic and in the Chihuahuan Desert.


John Walsh is a President’s Professor of Global Change at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. He is also the Director of the Cooperative Institute for Arctic Research and the Center for Global Change at the University of Alaska. He received his Ph.D. in Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1974, and served for 30 years on the faculty of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana. Dr. Walsh’s research interests include the climate of the Arctic, especially interactions between the atmosphere and polar surfaces; extreme weather events as they relate to climate; and the variability of the cryosphere. He was a lead author of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (2001-2005), and is a lead author for the Polar Regions chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s ongoing assessment. He has been a committee member of the Arctic Climate System Study and the Study of Environmental Arctic Change. He is a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society.

NRC Staff

Paul Cutler (Study Director) is a senior program officer for the Polar Research Board of the National Academies. He directs studies in the areas of polar science and atmospheric science. Before joining the Polar Research Board staff, Dr. Cutler was a senior program officer in the Academies’ Board on Earth Sciences and Resources, where he directed the Mapping Science Committee and studies in Earth science and geographic information science. Before joining the Academies, he was an assistant scientist and lecturer in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His research is in glaciology, hydrology, meteorology, and quaternary science, and he has conducted fieldwork in Alaska, Antarctica, arctic Sweden, the Swiss Alps, Pakistan’s Karakoram mountains, the midwestern United States, and the Canadian Rockies. Dr. Cutler received an M.Sc. in geography from the University of Toronto, and a Ph.D. in geology from the University of Minnesota.


Matthew L. Druckenmiller (Science and Technology Policy Graduate Fellow) was a visiting fellow with the Polar Research Board of the National Academies during Fall 2005. Prior to his fellowship, he attended the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, where he researched glacier volume changes throughout Alaska and western Canada using small aircraft laser altimetry. His research interests include interdisciplinary environmental change studies in the Arctic, remote sensing of the cryosphere, and carbon sequestration. Mr. Druckenmiller received a B.Sc. in environmental systems engineering and an M.Sc. in geo-environmental engineering from The Pennsylvania State University, where he investigated geologic carbon sequestration in brine.


Rachael Shiflett (Senior Program Assistant) is a senior program assistant with the Polar Research Board. She received her M.Sc. in environmental law from Vermont Law School in 2001 and will complete her J.D. at Catholic University in May 2007. Ms. Shiflett has coordinated National Research Council studies that produced the reports Vision for the International Polar Year 2007-2008, and International Polar Year 2007-2008 Report of the Implementation Workshop. Her research interests include the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix B Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2006. Toward an Integrated Arctic Observing Network. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11607.
×
Page 106
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2006. Toward an Integrated Arctic Observing Network. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11607.
×
Page 107
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2006. Toward an Integrated Arctic Observing Network. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11607.
×
Page 108
Suggested Citation:"Appendix B Biographical Sketches of Committee Members and Staff." National Research Council. 2006. Toward an Integrated Arctic Observing Network. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11607.
×
Page 109
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Observable changes with regional and global implications, such as warming temperatures and reduced sea ice, are taking place across the Arctic. However, the record of Arctic observations suffers from incomplete geographic coverage and limited duration, and measurements are not well coordinated. This makes it difficult to comprehensively describe current conditions in the Arctic, let alone understand the changes that are underway or their connections to the rest of the Earth system.

The U.S. National Science Foundation asked for guidance to help design a pan-arctic observing network. This book outlines the potential scope, composition, and implementation strategy for an arctic observing network. Such an integrated, complete, and multidisciplinary environmental observing network will improve society's understanding of and ability to respond to ongoing systemic changes in the Arctic and its capability to anticipate, predict, and respond to future change both in the Arctic and around the globe. The network would build on and enhance existing national and international efforts and deliver easily accessible, complete, reliable, timely, long-term, pan-arctic observations. Because many potential components of the network already exist or are being planned, and because of the surge of activity during the International Polar Year, there is an immediate opportunity for major progress.

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