Science

Noor Johnson is a research scientist at NSIDC, where she leads several international networks that support community-driven research on environmental change, Indigeous Knowledge documentation and co-production of knowledge, and food security and sovereignty. As PI and lead for the Exchange for Local Observations and Knowledge of the Arctic (ELOKA), she provides data management and user support to Arctic Indigenous communities and researchers spearheading research projects on environmental change, cultural knowledge transmission, and language preservation.

Dr. Twila Moon is Deputy Lead Scientist and Science Communication Liaison at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, part of the University of Colorado Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), a global leader in Earth science. Dr. Moon is a world-renowned scientist specializing in the connections across ice, climate, ocean, and ecosystem – and bringing climate science insights to decision makers and business leaders. Her discovery science focuses on the Greenland Ice Sheet and the Arctic.

Siri Jodha Singh Khalsa has published in the fields of satellite remote sensing, glaciology, global atmospheric teleconnections, air-sea interaction, boundary layer turbulence, and Earth science informatics. Since 1993, he has supported NASA’s Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).

John Cassano is the lead scientist at NSIDC, a fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), and a professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado. His research group studies how the polar atmosphere interacts with the other components of the polar climate system—sea ice, ocean, ice sheets and land. The Cassano research group develops and uses weather and climate models to study how atmospheric processes shape polar climate.

Joshua W. Brown is a postdoctoral researcher with the Exchange for Local Observations and Knowledge of the Arctic (ELOKA) at NSIDC. Brown examined Salish people’s food sovereignty and food systems while earning a Ph.D. in cultural and applied anthropology at the University of Montana. Brown is now developing research focused on Indigenous data and storytelling that contribute to ELOKA’s goal of enhancing the use and usefulness of Indigenous data while upholding Indigenous data sovereignty.

Christine Olson is a postdoctoral associate at the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Her current research focuses on understanding the accumulation and behavior of mercury pollution in the arctic. She is using SiBCASA, a land surface biogeochemical model, to understand how climate change will perturb the signficant pool of mercury stored globally in permafrost soils. 

Gabi Collao-Barrios is a postdoc at NSIDC. Her research focuses on two different aspects of the cryosphere. One is investigating the main processes involved in the snowpack spatial and temporal evolution in the Rocky Mountains, using field data (NASA SnowEX data) and modeling (SnowModel). The other is analyzing ice flow changes in the western Antarctic ice shelves, using satellite data (GO_LIVE project and collaboration with TARSAN Thwaites Glacier Project).

Matthew Druckenmiller is a research scientist at NSIDC. Since 2006, he has worked within the coastal regions of Arctic Alaska, investigating the connections between changing sea ice conditions and marine mammal habitat, and local Indigenous community use of sea ice for hunting and travel. Currently, he serves as director of the Navigating the New Arctic Community Office (NNA-CO) and co-leads the Exchange for Local Observations and Knowledge of the Arctic (ELOKA).