Climate Science Team
- David Eastman. Based in Geneva, Switzerland and a US citizen, he brings expertise in land tenure and land use conversion to the ACAR effort. With a BA from Indiana University David has a Masters of Public Health and MBA degree from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and its Carey School of Business and is working toward a Master of Natural Resources from Oregon State University. A Native English speaker, he has a mastery of Russian and French. A Peace Corps volunteer in Kazakhstan, he served as Program Officer, International Medical Corps in Afghanistan from 2001-2002, head of office for Mercy Corps in Darfur in 2005. He then served as Program Development Manager for Relief International, and from 2009 – 2011 served as a Technical Officer with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
- Ashwin Kumar. Having completed his Ph. D requirements at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, where his research has mainly been in atmospheric science, he has a background in engineering from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. At Carnegie Mellon he has studied the effects of cloud feedbacks on the sensitivity of the earth's surface temperature to radiative forcing, the effects of sulfate aerosols on the South Asian monsoon and equilibria in prediction markets. He is volunteering a part of his time this summer and expects to be mainly involved with the ACAR effort and perhaps also the Global Sustainable Energy Islands Initiative (GSEII), where he would work closely with Treasurer and Chief Operating Officer Nasir Khattak.
- Fern Dowdall. Possessing a Master of Science in Chemistry First Class Honours from University of Bristol, in October 2012 she enters a Ph. D program in Earth Sciences in Oxford University focusing on using oceanography to understand the dynamics behind climate processes. In her work with the ACAR project Fern will focus most heavily on effects of ocean acidification and ocean warming on Arctic ecosystems.
- Charles Ffoulkes. A British national and graduate of University of Exeter where he earned a B. Sc. in Geography (First Class Honours) and M. Sc. in Climate Change and Risk Management (Distinction), he has done research on evidence for and significance of teleconnections in contemporary climate change and in doing this looked at both Northern and Southern Hemisphere Oscillations. Most recently, he has analysed recent evidence for climate induced changes to rainfall patterns over London and studied the implications of this for flood risk management strategies. He is likely to spend the summer of 2012 working with Climate Institute President John Topping in Hanover, NH as we seek to establish ACAR links with Dartmouth College’s Institute of Arctic Studies http://dickey.dartmouth.edu/initiatives/arctic-studies and the Hanover, NH- based Cold Regions Research Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Regions_Research_and_Engineering_Laboratory
- Kathryn Segall Sierks. Studying for a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Engineering at Harvard College with a degree expected in 2013, Katie Sierks is working in Finland during the summer of 2012 on a research project to measure methane emissions emanating from peat bogs. For the ACAR Science Team she will focus especially on identifying availability of cost –effective measures of reducing such emissions. Katie, who hails from Edina, Minnesota, worked with the Minnesota Conservation Corps on trail construction and natural resource projects in the Superior National Forest during the summer of 2011 and spent the fall semester of 2011 at the National Outdoor Leadership School in India. She served on a student groups committee set up to help implement Harvard’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Plan.
- Julia Kelson. An Earth Sciences major at Dartmouth College where she is expecting to graduate in June 2012, Julia is writing an Honors Senior Thesis on Snow Accumulation Patterns near Summit, Greenland, advised by Prof. Bob Hawley. Fluent in Italian and conversant in Spanish, Julia has been a leader in the Dartmouth Outing Club. She served in the winter of 2011 as a hydrological research assistant at the US Geological Survey in Montpelier, Vermont, collecting snow cores and meteorological data and interpreting relations between snowpack data and climate change indicators Following her graduation from Dartmouth Julia will serve as Summer Term Coordinator of the Center for Environmental Leadership Training (CELT). Even before then and later she will participate in the Arctic Science Team focusing on identifying research on snowfall change and effects of black carbon on snow and ice albedo.
- Elizabeth Rose Leuin. A Biology and Society major enrolled in the College of Arts and Sciences of Cornell University from which she expects to graduate in May 2013, Elizabeth has developed regular blog entries on sustainable agriculture for the Cornell Daily Sun. Proficient in French, she is likely to provide research work for the Arctic Science Team on the potential for sustainable agricultural practices to reduce deposition of black carbon in the Arctic.