Sea Secrets Lecture: Robin Elizabeth Bell, PhD

Robin Elizabeth Bell, Ph.D.

PGI Lamont Research Professor, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University

Changing ice, large calving icebergs and disappearing glaciers are emblematic of the rapid warm-ing of our planet. Coastlines from Miami to Mumbai are responding to the changing ice. Beneath the ice of Antarctica are hidden terrains from mountain ranges, rivers that run uphill to lakes the size of New Jersey. Polar science is at the edge of discovery and wonder. These discoveries help us understand how the ice will change in the future, and what will happen to our coastlines.Dr. Robin Bell received her undergraduate degree in geology from Middlebury College in Vermont and her Ph.D. in geophysics from Columbia University in 1989. Bell has explored our planet’s ice sheets, developed innovative technology and improved the scientific culture for women. Bell has coordinated ten major aero-geophysical expeditions to Antarctica and Greenland, studying what makes ice sheets collapse, discovering a volcano beneath the West Antarctic ice sheet and several large lakes beneath two miles of ice, and demonstrating that ice sheets can thicken from below. She led a Lamont team to map the Hudson River from Staten Island to Albany. She was the first women to chair the National Academy of Science’s Polar Research Board (2002-2008) and launched the International Polar Year 2007-2009 that brought together over 50,000 scientists from around the globe. Bell is president of the American Geophysical Union, the largest organization of Earth and space scientists in the world.

**Winners of the 2020 Rosenstiel School Underwater Photography Contest will be announced at the conclusion of the April 28th Lecture.

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