The former Chief of Operations at the NOAA Aircraft Operations Center in Lakeland, Florida, pilot and NOAA Corps CAPT Catherine A. Martin is now the Executive Director of NOAA Boulder Laboratories.
Those not familiar with the Great Lakes freshwater coasts may wonder how a seemingly endless supply of mussels could possibly be a bad thing. After all, saltwater mussels considered a delicacy by many, is a common item found on your favorite restaurant’s menu. Unfortunately, the freshwater dreissenid mussel is not only an unwelcomed item on the menu, but also in North America’s freshwater waterways. These invasive mussels have very few natural predators to limit their numbers, so their populations continue to grow and spread, wreaking havoc on the Great Lakes food web.
Since the 1960s scientists have used the so-called "butterfly effect" to explain why we struggle to predict such extreme events with more than two weeks of advanced notice. But Elizabeth Barnes, Assistant Professor at Colorado State University, is pushing the envelope. Barnes likes making complex things simple, and with her team is turning the theory about Earth’s chaotic weather patterns on its head.
Dr. Meiyun Lin is a Research Scholar at NOAA and Princeton University’s Cooperative Institute for Climate Science. Dr. Lin’s research seeks to advance knowledge on the interactions of air quality with weather and climate to inform public policy.
Ocean chemistry is changing faster right now than at any time over the past 50 million years. “We are fundamentally altering marine ecosystems,” says NOAA oceanographer Simone Alin, Ph.D. With her colleagues at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL), Alin is responsible for monitoring the rapidly changing chemistry of seawater and understanding the ramifications for the world’s oceans, particularly the highly productive, fisheries-rich coastal waters off the west coast of North America.
As a young girl, Robbie Hood watched her father test NASA rocket engines for the Apollo missions in the rural Missouri landscape. It was during those formative years that NOAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems program director got her first glimpse of the thrill of a scientific career.
Young award winner continues tradition of climate science
With a background in coastal hazards and community resilience, Washington Sea Grant's Jamie Mooney is active in helping Washington communities prepare for sea level rise and coastal hazards.
The ocean plays a huge role in the carbon cycle, absorbing 25 percent of yearly carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Adrienne Sutton's research focuses on characterizing the extent of ocean acidification in the open ocean and coral reef environments, and how processes like the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) affect variations in ocean carbon chemistry over time and space.
An oceanographer for the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Sharon Walker spends her time surveying the ocean floor and sampling the water column to identify sites of submarine volcanic activity and deep sea vents. By locating these vent sites, we can learn more about our earth’s crust, ocean circulation, and deep sea ecosystems.