Plenary Speaker Profiles
Arden L. Bement, Jr., was sworn in as the 12th Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) on November 24, 2004. Dr. Bement heads the only federal agency that funds research and education in all fields of science and engineering. He directs a budget of more than $6 billion; hundreds of programs that support roughly 200,000 scientists, engineers, educators, and students across the country; and the development of world-class facilities and infrastructure. Dr. Bement holds an engineer of metallurgy degree from the Colorado School of Mines, a master's degree in metallurgical engineering from the University of Idaho, a doctorate in metallurgical engineering from the University of Michigan, and honorary doctorates from Cleveland State University, Case Western Reserve University, and the Colorado School of Mines, as well as a Chinese Academy of Sciences Graduate School Honorary Professorship. He is a retired Lieutenant Colonel of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and a recipient of the Distinguished Service Medal of the Department of Defense.
Dr. Robert W. Corell is a Principal for the Global Environment Technology Foundation, an Ambassador for ClimateWorks, Professor II at the University of the Arctic's new Institute of Circumpolar Reindeer Husbandry and Professor II at the University of Tromso. He is a Partner of the Sustainability Institute and it's C-ROADS Climate Interactive Initiative, Head of US Office for the Global Energy Assessment, and Chair of the Global Climate Action Initiative established to assist international negotiators in the COP 15 and beyond processes. In 2003 a Mountain region in Antarctic was named the "Corell Cirque" in his honor. Further, Dr. Corell was recognized with the other scientists as recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his extensive work with the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessments. In 1996, Dr. Corell was awarded the Brazilian Order of Scientific Merit by the President of Brazil. He served as Vice President for Programs and Policy at The Heinz Center from 2006-2010. Dr. Corell served as an Affiliate of the Washington Advisory Group and is a Senior Policy Fellow at the Policy Program of the American Meteorological Society. He recently completed an appointment that began in January 2000 as a Senior Research Fellow in the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Dr. Robert Corell has been quoted in The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, Golf Digest, CBS News' 60 Minutes, and many additional public media outlets. Dr. Corell is actively engaged in research concerned with the sciences of global change and the interface between science and public policy, particularly research activities that are focused on global and regional climate change, related environmental issues, and science to facilitate understanding of vulnerability and sustainable development. He co-chairs an international strategic planning group that is developing a strategy designed to harness science, technology, and innovation for sustainable development; serves as the Chair of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment; counsels as Senior Science Advisor to ManyOne.Net; and is Chair of the Board of the Digital Universe Foundation. Dr. Corell was Assistant Director for Geosciences at the National Science Foundation where he had oversight for the Atmospheric, Earth, and Ocean Sciences and the global change programs of the National Science Foundation (NSF). He was also a professor and academic administrator at the University of New Hampshire. Dr. Corell is an oceanographer and engineer by background and training, having received Ph.D., M.S., and B.S. degrees at Case Western Reserve University and MIT. He has also held appointments at the Woods Hole Institution of Oceanography, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the University of Washington, and Case Western Reserve University.
Prof. Forbes has a background in applied ecology and geography in permafrost environments. His research encompasses both the natural and social sciences. His experience is circumpolar having conducted field studies of human impacts on vegetation and soils, with special emphasis on the consequences of petroleum development, in the boreal forest and arctic ecosystems of Alaska, Canada, western and eastern Siberia, and Fennoscandia. Recent research has focused on management of arctic ungulates employing both western and local or practitioners' knowledge in cooperation with Nenets and Sámi reindeer herders.
Louis Fortier is the Project Leader for the Canadian Research Icebreaker Amundsen and the Scientific Director of ArcticNet, a Canadian Network of Centres of Excellence dedicated to the study of the transforming coastal Canadian Arctic. Louis Fortier was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in February 2007. He received an honorary Ph D from the University of Manitoba in October 2007. The Government of Québec made him Officier de l'Ordre National du Québec in June 2008. He received in October 2009 the prestigious Stefansson Medal from the Explorers Club.
Dr. Masami Fukuda is a visiting professor from Hokkaido University, currently at the International Arctic Research Center in Fairbanks, Alaska. His research interests include geocryology, environmental sciences, climate change, and permafrost. Dr. Fukuda has done major field work in arctic Alaska and Canada, east Siberia, and Antarctica, and is currently studying wildfire impacts on Alaskan terrestrial systems.
I am an Assistant Professor in the Indigenous Environmental Studies Program cross-appointed between the Departments of Environmental Resource Sciences / Studies and Indigenous Studies. I am also currently the co-Director of the Nasivvik Centre for Inuit health and changing environments situated at Laval University (Quebec City) and Trent University (www.nasivvik.ulaval.ca/). I teach courses within the IES program on topics related to Indigenous peoples, health and the environment.
I am a multidisciplinary researcher with a background in both the biological (BSc and MSc) and social sciences (PhD). Much of my research is focused on the assessment of health impacts associated with environmental change (e.g. climate change, environmental contaminants) in circumpolar Indigenous communities. I am also particularly interested in methods and processes for linking Indigenous Knowledge with Natural, Physical and Health Science knowledge for understanding Arctic environmental health issues. Some of my time is also spent as a member of several Regional Inuit, National and International review and advisory committees on Arctic environmental health.
Since August 31, 2008, Laura Furgione has served as the Assistant Administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Office of Program Planning and Integration. In this role, she is responsible for corporate management to coordinate the many lines of service of this $4 billion agency dedicated to understanding and predicting changes in the Earth's environment and conserving and managing coastal and marine resources. She is responsible for annual planning as well as long term strategic planning, performance evaluation, program integration through matrix management, and policy integration including compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act. Her efforts are directed to ensuring NOAA's investments and actions are guided by a strategic plan; are based on sound social and economic analysis; adhere to executive and legislative science, technology and environmental policy; and integrate the full breadth of NOAA's resources, knowledge and talent to meet its stated mission goal.
From October 2004 to August 2008, Ms. Furgione served as Director of NOAA's National Weather Service, Alaska Region. Alaska Region is headquartered in Anchorage with responsibility for 20 offices throughout the state. As Director, Ms. Furgione was responsible for all operational and scientific climatological, meteorological, hydrological, volcanic ash and tsunami warning programs for the state of Alaska and its surrounding waters.
Other positions Ms. Furgione has held within the NWS include meteorological intern at the Kodiak, Alaska, Weather Service Office; intern at the Fairbanks, Alaska, Weather Forecast Office (WFO); aviation meteorologist at the Alaska Aviation Weather Unit; warning coordination meteorologist at WFO Morehead City, North Carolina; meteorologist in charge of WFO Juneau, Alaska; and Alaska Deputy Regional Director.
Ms. Furgione holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Atmospheric Science from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a Masters Degree in Public Administration from the University of Alaska-Southeast. Her husband, Tim, and she became the proud parents of twins in October 2004.
Jean-Claude Gascard is a director of research emeritus at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique/National Center of Scientific Research. He works in the LOCEAN laboratory at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris. He has been interested in the Arctic Ocean and its role in the earth's climate for 25 years. He is the coordinator of Europe's integrated Damocles project (2005-2010), which is looking into the origins and consequences of climate change in the Arctic.
Senior Scientist and Program Manager for Science and Impacts
Jay Gulledge is the Senior Scientist and Program Manager for Science and Impacts at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. Dr. Gulledge oversees the Pew Center's efforts to assess the current state of scholarly knowledge about the science and environmental impacts of climate change and to communicate this knowledge to policy-makers and the public.
Dr. Gulledge is a Certified Senior Ecologist with more than 15 years experience teaching and conducting research in environmental science. Prior to joining the Pew Center he served on the faculties of Tulane University and the University of Louisville, where he developed courses in global environmental change and ecosystem ecology, among others. His academic research program is housed at the University of Wyoming, where he holds an adjunct faculty appointment. His research investigates how environmental change alters the natural exchange of greenhouse gases between soils and the atmosphere, and he actively publishes in the peer-reviewed literature on this and other global change topics. He also serves on the editorial board of Ecological Applications, a peer-reviewed journal published by the Ecological Society of America.
Dr. Gulledge earned a PhD (1996) in biological sciences from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and M.S. (1991) and B.S. (1988) degrees in biology from the University of Texas at Arlington. He was a Life Sciences Research Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University (1997-1999) and a postdoctoral research associate with the Bonanza Creek (Alaska) Long-term Ecological Research Program of the National Science Foundation (1996-1997).
Dr. Vladimir Kattsov, Director of Voeikov Main Geophysical Observatory in St. Petersburg, Russian Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environment Monitoring (Roshydromet). Scientific field and expertise: global climate 3D modelling; high-latitude climate dynamics, model evaluation. Member, Joint Steering Committee (JSC) of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) (since 2009); Member at large, International Association of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences (IAMAS) of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) (since 2007); Member, Scientific Advisory Committee, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Climate Center (APCC) (since 2006); Former member, WCRP Climate and Cryosphere (CliC) Scientific Steering Group (2007-2008); Lead author of the IPCC Working Group I Third (2001) and Fourth (2007) Assessment Reports; Member of the Core writing team of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Synthesis Report (2007); Lead author of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA, 2005); Former member of the CAS/JSC Working Group on Numerical Experimentation (WGNE, 2000-2005). More than 70 scientific publications in Russian and international peer-reviewed journals and books.
Timo Koivurova is a research professor and director of the Northern Institute for Environmental and Minority Law (Arctic Centre, University of Lapland), an institute specialised in northern and Arctic legal issues. Koivurova has lead several EU, Nordic and Finnish funded research projects dealing with the changing Arctic. His main topics of expertise are transboundary environmental impact assessment, climate change regulation, the law relating to indigenous peoples and the law of the sea as it applies in the Arctic waters. Professor Koivurova has also taken part in the discussion in popular media but also in research-wise over how the Arctic should in the future be governed.
Valeriy Kryukov graduated as an Economist-Mathematician at the University of Novosibirsk. After this he had finished post graduate course at the Institute of Economics - defended Candidate of Science dissertation (on social-economic evaluation of the profiles of the development of hydrocarbons fields in the Siberian North) and then later defended Doctor of Science Dissertation (on institutional transformation of the Russian oil and gas sector).
Among spheres of research activities are: social-economic impact of hydrocarbons development on Siberian North, mineral resource management; mineral sector structure with special attention to the trajectories in a period of formation market oriented relations in Russian economy. As an economist Valeriy Kryukov in a strong opposition towards unclear and artificial character or transfer pricing procedures in Russian mineral sector which are decreases economic potential of the Northern regions for solving socio-economic problems in a sustainable oriented way.
Valeriy Kryukov as an expert took part in preparing several laws as at the federal as at the regional level. One of the latest activities – developing norms and procedures to minimize associated gas flaring.
Valeriy Kryukov occupies Chair position at the Higher School of Economics – he is one of the founders of the first in Russia MA programme on resource management.
Andrea Lloyd is a plant ecologist who is interested in the effects of past, present, and future climate change on the boreal forest. She conducts research at treeline sites in Alaska and, more recently, in the Siberian taiga, using tree rings as a tool for reconstructing patterns in forest structure, distribution and growth over time. She has been a professor at Middlebury College in Vermont since 1996, and teaches courses on ecology and evolution, plant ecology, and global change biology.
Marianne Lykke Thomsen has a background in Inuit Studies and has been living in Nuuk, Greenland since 1987. She has been advising the Government of Greenland on foreign policy issues since 1994, before which she held the position of environmental coordinator with Inuit Circumpolar Council.
Marianne Lykke Thomsen is coordinating Government of Greenland’s engagement with the United Nations, in particular with respect to the promotion and protection of the rights of indigenous peoples. Marianne Lykke Thomsen has also been part of the Arctic Council process for many years and is currently serving as the Chair of the Sustainable Development Working Group of the Arctic Council.
Vera Kingeekuk Metcalf was born and raised in Sivungaq (Savoonga) on St. Lawrence Island, Alaska. She now lives in Nome and has been the Director of the Eskimo Walrus Commission (EWC) with Kawerak, Inc. since 2002. She works to promote local community participation in research that involves a community's natural and cultural resources.
Maribeth Murray is the Executive Director of the International Study of Arctic Change (ISAC) International Program Office in Stockholm (www.arcticchange.org). She is also an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (www.uaf.edu/anthro) and a research affiliate of the International Arctic Research Center (www.iarc.uaf.edu). Her research and publications are focused on the paleo and more recent records of impacts and feedbacks from climate to people, marine mammals, and fisheries in the Arctic and Subarctic, and the extension of climate records using novel retrospective datasets. Her work is interdisciplinary, placing emphasis on the integration of historical, archaeological, oceanographic, climatological, and biogeochemical approaches to arctic system science and marine ecosystem sustainability initiatives. She has served as Chair of the Anthropology Department at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, as Director of the Human Dimensions of the Arctic System Core Office, as a member of the SEARCH Observing Change Panel, and as Editor of the Anthropological Papers of the University of Alaska. She is a member of the Arctic Futures Steering Committee for the Swedish research foundation MISTRA, and a Co-PI and Member of the Steering Committee for UAF's NSF supported Ph.D IGERT program MESAS: Marine Ecosystem Sustainability in the Arctic and Subarctic. She recieved a B.A. in Archaeology from Wilifrid Laurier University, an M.A. in Anthropology from Memorial University of Newfoundland, and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from McMaster University. Since 1998 she has been on the faculty of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and since 2007 she has been the Executive Director of ISAC.
Chester Reimer has 25 years experience working with indigenous peoples both at the community level and internationally. He continues to represent and advise Inuit at the United Nations, the Arctic Council, and other international fora. Mr. Reimer has lived in and worked for Cree First Nations, and has run human rights training programs in South America and in the Arctic for indigenous peoples. He has also lived and worked in Africa. Mr. Reimer has a long history of working with the Inuit Circumpolar Council (research director), the International Training Center of Indigenous Peoples (executive director), and the Arctic Council's Indigenous Peoples' Secretariat (executive secretary). He has a degree in Civil Engineering from the University of Manitoba, Canada, and a Master's in Environmental Studies (International Development) from York University, Canada. He is also president of an Ottawa-based consulting company, CRCI, which specializes in international affairs. Currently, Mr. Reimer spends much of his time acting as Senior Policy Advisor for the Inuit Circumpolar Council.
Dr. Peter Schlosser is the Associate Director and Director of Research of the Earth Institute, Columbia University, Vinton Professor of Earth and Environmental Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University. He is also a member of the senior research staff at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Schlosser's research is directed towards understanding the Earth's natural water bodies including oceans, groundwater and continental waters, their natural variability and perturbation by human activity, and the possibility to design engineering solutions to the problems caused by natural and anthropogenic change.
Dr. Martin Sommerkorn is the Senior Climate Change Advisor of WWF’s International Arctic Programme and coordinates the climate change activities of WWF's Arctic Initiative. His main focus is on communicating both the impacts and the global relevance of arctic climate change to the public and to policy-makers, particularly targeting the international process to secure a strong global deal on the mitigation of atmospheric greenhouse gases. Martin also increasingly focuses on the challenge to build the resilience of arctic ecosystems in the light of climate change, so that key ecosystem processes, biodiversity, and the services people rely upon are sustained.
Martin has joined WWF International’s Arctic Programme after more than 15 years of carrying out arctic research and an even longer time travelling and working in the Arctic. An ecologist by training his own research is in the field of ecosystem ecology, where he focuses on how climate change impacts on tundra carbon cycling, an important arctic feedback mechanism to global climate change. He was based in Germany, Sweden, the USA, and for five years he headed a research group in Scotland, where he also lectured at Aberdeen University on arctic climate change, ecosystem ecology, and ecosystem resilience.
A native of Schenectady, N.Y., Rear Admiral Titley was commissioned through the Naval Reserve Officers Training Commissioning program in 1980 and has completed numerous sea duty and shore tours. In 2009, Titley assumed duties as oceanographer and navigator of the Navy. Titley earned a Bachelor of Science in meteorology from the Pennsylvania State University, a Master of Science in meteorology and physical oceanography, and a Ph.D in meteorology, both from the Naval Postgraduate School. In 2003-2004, Titley attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Seminar XXI on Foreign Politics, International Relations, and National Interest. He was elected a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society in 2009.
Mead Treadwell is Chair of the seven-member U.S. Arctic Research Commission, appointed by the President. The Commission sets goals for the U.S. Arctic Research Program and builds cooperation in research among federal agencies, the State of Alaska, Universities, and international partners. As a Senior Fellow at the Institute of the North, Anchorage, Alaska, he focuses on Arctic and security policy. He is CEO of Venture Ad Astra, an Anchorage and Portland-based firm which develops and invests in cutting-edge geospatial location and imaging technologies. Formerly, he served as Deputy Commissioner of Alaska's Department of Environmental Conservation. He has helped launch a number of research programs in government, the academy and private enterprise during his career.
John Walsh is a President's Professor of Global Climate Change at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks (UAF). He is the Director of the Center for Global Change, and he is also the Chief Scientist of the International Arctic Research Center. His primary research interests are: Arctic climate change over the decade-to-century timescale; predictability of climate change in high latitudes, sea ice variations; and extreme weather events in the context of climate change. He was the lead author for the cryosphere chapter of the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (2005) and a lead author for the Polar Regions chapter of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report (2007). He is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Climate. Prior to his position at the University of Alaska, Walsh spent 30 years on the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana. He is the co-author of an undergraduate textbook on severe and hazardous weather.
Wendy Watson-Wright has been Assistant Director General and Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (IOC-UNESCO) since January 4, 2010. Headquartered in Paris, IOC-UNESCO promotes international cooperation and coordinates programmes in marine research, services, observation systems, hazard mitigation and capacity development in order to better manage the nature and resources of the oceans and coastal areas.
From 2001 to 2009, she was Assistant Deputy Minister (ADM), Science Sector, in Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) where she was responsible for providing the leadership, and policy and scientific direction for all science activities in the department, including oceanography, hydrography, and fisheries, aquaculture, habitat, climate and aquatic ecosystem science. In that role, she was very active in Arctic science issues, having been co-chair of the federal interdepartmental committee on Northern Science which was responsible for preparing Canada for the International Polar Year. She was also a charter member of the Board of Directors for the Canadian Network of Centres of Excellence, ArcticNet.
Other positions she has held within the Canadian federal public service include research scientist (shellfish toxins) with the Inspection Services branch of DFO in Halifax, Nova Scotia; Director of the DFO St. Andrews (Marine) Biological Station in New Brunswick, Director General of DFO Audit and Evaluation (Ottawa), and Director General of Strategic Policy and later Associate ADM of Population and Public Health Branch in Health Canada.
Dr. Watson-Wright holds a Ph.D. in Physiology from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Elke U. Weber is the Jerome A. Chazen Professor of International Business at Columbia Business School and Professor of Psychology at Columbia University. Previously she has held academic positions in both the United States and Europe. She also spent time at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, the Wissenschaftskolleg in Berlin, and the Russell Sage Foundation in New York. As an expert on behavioral models of decision making under risk and uncertainty, she has been investigating psychologically appropriate ways to measure individual and cultural differences in risk taking, specifically in environmental and financial contexts. Weber is past president of the Society for Mathematical Psychology, the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, and the Society for Neuroeconomics, and has served on several advisory committees of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC on human dimensions in global change. At Columbia, she founded and co-directs Center for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED), which investigates ways of facilitating human adaptation to climate change and climate variability.
Oran Young is Professor of Environmental Policy at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Specializing in the analysis of environmental institutions with particular reference to international regimes, Dr. Young also serves as Co-director of the Program on Governance for Sustainable Development at the Bren School. Dr. Young served for six years as Founding Chair of the Committee on the Human Dimensions of Global Change of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States and chaired the Scientific Steering Committee of the international project on the Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (IDGEC) under the auspices of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP). He currently chairs the Scientific Committee of the IHDP. An expert on Arctic issues, Dr. Young served as Vice-president of the International Arctic Science Committee, Chair of the Board of Governors of the University of the Arctic, and Co-chair of the Arctic Human Development Report. Dr. Young's work as author or co-author of over twenty books and numerous scholarly articles includes: Institutions and Environmental Change: Principal Findings, Applications, and Future Directions; The Institutional Dimensions of Environmental Change: Fit, Interplay, and Scale; Governance in World Affairs; and International Governance: Protecting the Environment in a Stateless Society.
