Speaker: Brendan Kelly
What does it mean that the Arctic is changing? How might we understand the local and global significance of melt and thaw? Are we asking the right questions? Professional and personal stories —forged over the past 50 years by snow, ice, seals, Labrador retrievers, mentors, and students—help me synthesize the observations and models. Your responses to some of those stories will, I hope, further increase my understanding.
Bio:
Brendan Kelly is the Chief Scientist for the International Arctic Research Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks. He directs the Study of Environmental Arctic Change, a multi-disciplinary, multi-cultural study. He also serves as a Senior Fellow with the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. A marine ecologist with a focus on sea ice environments, he has participated in and led collaborative research in the North Pacific Ocean, Arctic Ocean, Sea of Okhotsk, Baltic Sea, Lake Saimaa, and Antarctica. His studies of ice-associated mammals benefitted from close collaborations with Indigenous hunters, scientific colleagues, students, and very smart Labrador retrievers. He has led efforts to understand and respond to climate change including as Deputy Director of the Arctic Division, National Science Foundation; Executive Director of the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee; Chief Scientist, Monterey Bay Aquarium; and Assistant Director for Polar Science, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. In the latter position, he led one of three lines of effort and Alaska outreach for the nation’s first National Strategy for the Arctic Region.