Ellen Mosley-Thompson is a Distinguished University Professor in the
Department of Geography (Atmospheric Science Program) and a Senior Research
Scientist in the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center at The Ohio State University.
She uses the chemical and physical properties preserved in cores collected from both
polar ice sheets and high mountain glaciers to reconstruct Earth’s complex climate history.
These records indicate that Earth’s climate has moved outside the range of natural variability
experienced over at least the last 2000 years. She has led nine expeditions to
Antarctica and six to Greenland to retrieve ice cores. In 2010 she led the field team for
the ice core drilling project on Bruce Plateau (Antarctic Peninsula), a U.S. contribution to
the International Polar Year, where the team collected a 448-meter core to bedrock.
She has published 137 peer-reviewed papers and is the recipient of 53 research grants.
She is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society and is a Fellow of the American
Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She
recently served on the NRC-NAS Committee that produced the 2014 report “The Arctic
in the Anthropocene: Emerging Research Questions