National Snow and Ice Data Center

Dr. Jackie Richter-Menge is a research engineer with the US Army Corps of Engineers Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL), in Hanover, NH, and a Research Affiliate with the Institute of Northern Engineering at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). Her research helps develop a more comprehensive understanding of the Arctic sea ice cover through direct observations. Recently, she has assisted with the deployment of a network of autonomous sea ice mass balance buoys, as part of the Arctic Observing Network. Jackie also collects in situ ice thickness and snow depth measurements to support the development of airborne and satellite-based observations and participates in a wide range of educational outreach activities. In recognition of her career achievements, she proudly received an Honorary Doctorate of Science from UAF during commencement exercises on 8 May 2016.

Dr. Larry Mayer is a Professor and the Director of the School of Marine Science and Ocean Engineering and the Director of the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping at the University of New Hampshire. Larry has participated in more than 90 cruises and has been chief or co-chief scientist of numerous expeditions including two legs of the Ocean Drilling Program and eight mapping expeditions in the ice covered regions of the high Arctic. He is the recipient of the Keen Medal for Marine Geology and an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Stockholm. He has chaired National Academies of Science committees on national needs for coastal and ocean mapping and on the impact of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill on ecosystem services in the Gulf of Mexico and is currently the Chair of the Academy’s Ocean Studies Board. Larry's research deals with sonar imaging and remote characterization of the seafloor as well as advanced applications of 3-D visualization to ocean mapping problems and applications of mapping to Law of the Sea issues, particularly in the Arctic.

Walt Meier is a research scientist in the Cryospheric Sciences Lab at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. His research focuses on remote sensing of sea ice, developing new sea ice products and sea ice climate data records, and analyzing changes in the Arctic sea ice cover. Walt was a coordinating lead author for the Arctic Council's "Snow, Water, Ice, and Permafrost in the Arctic (SWIPA) Assessment Report", published in Fall 2011, and is a lead author of the follow-up report to be published next year. He has served on numerous international and national committees on sea ice, Arctic climate, and climate data. He has a B.S. from the University of Michigan and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Colorado. Before joining NASA Goddard in 2013, Walt was a visiting scientist at the U.S. National Ice Center from 1999 to 2001, an adjunct assistant professor at the U.S. Naval Academy from 2001 to 2003, and a research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center from 2003 to 2013.

Dr. Ray Sambrotto is a Research Professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University in Palisades, NY USA. His work centers on aquatic microbiology and marine ecology. He has investigated every major ocean basin to evaluate its role in the movement of nutrients and carbon dioxide through the ocean and atmosphere and how the ecological structure in the upper ocean interacts with earth’s climatic variations. He has worked extensively in the Arctic, and in particular on the interaction between sea ice and arctic biological productivity and the adaptation of microbes in such extreme environments. He is the developer of EarthView Explorer, a software package for student exploration of the earth sciences and contributed to the development of SCICEX, a project to use U.S. Navy submarines for scientific sampling of the Arctic Ocean.

Dr. William M. Smethie, Jr. is a Special Research Scientist at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) of Columbia University, having just retired from his Doherty Research Professor position. His research focuses on measurement of natural and anthropogenic chemical tracers in the ocean to study physical processes, particularly deep circulation, mixing and formation of subsurface water masses. Since the 1980s, he has been using these techniques to study the variability in circulation and mixing in the Arctic Ocean along with how these processes influence the freshwater budget by collecting underlying water samples from icebreaker cruises, submarine excursions, and aircraft landings on the sea ice. His most recent work includes collecting a decade long time series of hydrographic and tracer measurements along a section extending from Alert to the North Pole from aircraft and measuring CFCs and SF6 on the 2015 US GEOTRACES cruse aboard the USGS Healy.