International Arctic Science Committee (IASC)

International Arctic Science Committee (IASC)
Polar Knowledge Canada (POLAR) is Canada’s member organization of the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC). IASC encourages and facilitates international cooperation and supports leading-edge research to foster a greater scientific understanding of the Arctic region and its role in the Earth system. POLAR appoints Canadian representatives on IASC’s Council and Working Groups. For further information about IASC, please visit: http://www.iasc.info/

Canada’s National IASC Delegate: Dr. Wayne Pollard
Contact: Wayne.pollard@mcgill.ca

Wayne Pollard
Dr. Wayne Pollard is a Professor in the Department of Geography at McGill University and a field geomorphologist and geologist with more than 35 years of field experience in the Canadian Arctic and Subarctic and more than 20 years of experience in the Antarctic. His primary research focus is permafrost geomorphology and hydrology, specializing in cold polar deserts. Dr. Pollard is the research director of McGill’s Arctic Research Station (MARS) on Axel Heiberg Island, Nunavut and McGill’s Sub-Arctic Research Station (MSARS) in Schefferville, Quebec and currently serves as Vice President of the Canadian Network of Northern Research Operators (CNNRO) and the Chair of NSERC’s Discovery Grant Northern Research Supplements Committee.

Atmosphere Working Group: Prof. James Drummond and Prof. Kent Moore
Contact: james.drummond@dal.ca and gwk.moore@utoronto.ca

James Drummond

Prof. James R. Drummond, M.A., D.Phil. FRSC graduated from the University of Oxford in England and was a faculty member of the Department of Physics, Toronto University for over 25 years and now holds a Canada Research Chair in Remote Sounding of Atmospheres in the Department of Physics and Atmospheric Science at Dalhousie University.  He has been involved in major atmospheric science projects for over 40 years. His research involves problems of measuring constituents in the atmosphere that are involved in pollution and climate change and he has led or participated in many major measurement efforts during his career. He is the currently the Principal Investigator for the Measurements Of Pollution in The Troposphere (MOPITT) instrument on the Terra satellite; a Co-Investigator for the instruments on the Canadian SciSat satellite; Principal Investigator of the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL) at Eureka, Nunavut; the founding president of the Canadian Network of Northern Research Operators (CNNRO);  the Chair of the Forum of Arctic Research Operators (FARO); and the Canadian representative to several International organisations and participates in several national committees.  He is the author or co-author of over 170 scientific papers.

Kent Moore

Prof. Kent Moore has a Ph.D. in Geophysical Fluid Dynamics from Princeton University. He is currently a Professor of Physics at the University of Toronto. Professor Moore’s research interests include: theoretical geophysical fluid dynamics, mesoscale meteorology, polar meteorology, high latitude air-sea-ice interactions, physical oceanography, paleoclimatology and high altitude physiology. Professor Moore has published over 150 research papers in the high quality peer-reviewed literature. Among the journals that Professor Moore has published in include: Science, Nature, Nature Climate Change, Nature Communications, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of Climate, the Journal of Hydrometeorology, Geophysical Research Letters, Progress in Oceanography, Deep Sea Research and the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society. In addition, Professor Moore has played a leadership role in a number of national and international research collaborations including the Canadian Atlantic Storms Program, the Beaufort and Arctic Storms Experiment, the Canadian GEWEX (Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment) Program, the Labrador Sea Deep Ocean Convection Experiment, the Greenland Flow Distortion Experiment, the Storms of the Arctic Experiment and the Iceland-Greenland Sea Project. Professor Moore has also trained over 30 undergraduate students, graduate students and post-doctoral fellows who have gone onto varied careers in private industry, government and academe. Professor Moore has received funding from a variety of sources including the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Environment Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, External Affairs Canada, the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research.

Cryosphere Working Group: Dr. Shawn Marshall
Contact: marshals@ucalgary.ca

Shawn Marshall
Dr. Shawn Marshall is a Professor in the Department of Geography and a Canada Research Chair in Climate Change at the University of Calgary. As a cryosphere scientist, he specializes in glaciology, using a combination of modeling and field research to study glacier and ice sheet dynamics and cryosphere-climate processes, including field work in Kluane, Yukon; Ellesmere Island, Nunavut; Iceland; and Greenland. He has been involved with the Arctic Institute of North America as a Board member since 2008 and has also been a member of many cryoshere science and related committees within Canada and internationally, including the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council’s Discovery Grant Evaluation Group and the Council of the International Glaciological Society.

Marine Working Group: Dr. John C. Fyfe and Dr. Christine Michel
Contact: John.Fyfe@canada.ca and Christine.Michel@dfo-mpo.gc.ca

John Fyfe
Dr. John C. Fyfe is a Senior Scientist with Environment and Climate Change Canada. He leads and participates in research in the areas of global and regional climate variability and climate change with a focus on the roles of the Arctic and Antarctic in the global climate system. He and colleagues have published numerous influential research papers many found in the journals of Nature and Science, and is the recipient of the President’s Prize from the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS) for his “contributions to our understanding of climate variability and change, especially in polar regions”. He is member of a number international committees some related to polar regions including the CLIVAR/CliC Northern Oceans Regional Panel which he co-founded and co-chairs. He was a Lead Author of the Working Group I contribution to the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a Review Editor of the fifth assessment report, and is presently a Lead Author of the sixth assessment report; and was formally acknowledged by the IPCC and the Government of Canada for his contributions leading to the awarding of the Noble Peace Prize to the IPCC in 2007.

Dr. Christine Michel biography to come.

Social and Human Working Group: Dr. Susan Chatwood and Dr. David Natcher
Contact: Susan.chatwood@ichr.ca and david.natcher@usask.ca

Dr. Susan Chatwood is an Associate Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta, and is a recipient of the McCalla Professorship at the University of Alberta. She also holds affiliations as an Assistant Professor in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and Institute for Health Policy Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. She has a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from University of British Columbia, a Masters in Epidemiology from McGill University and PhD in Medical Science from the University of Toronto. Susan was a scholar in the Fulbright Arctic Initiative, and is the Past President of the Canadian Society for Circumpolar Health. Susan has spent most of her career in remote and northern communities, working in the clinical setting, public health and research. Her research interests include circumpolar health systems stewardship and performance, and the synthesis of knowledge that promotes broader understandings of health systems and wellness in the Arctic.

Dr. David Natcher is a Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Saskatchewan. He has graduate degrees from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (Arctic and Northern Studies 1996) and the University of Alberta (Anthropology 1999). Prior to joining the University of Saskatchewan, Dr. Natcher held faculty appointments at the University of Alaska Anchorage and Memorial University of Newfoundland. While at Memorial University, he held a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Aboriginal Studies. Dr. Natcher’s research is in economic and environmental Anthropology where he explores the changing northern economy, and the strategies employed by Indigenous and other resource dependent communities to deal effectively with social, political, economic and environmental change. Dr. Natcher currently holds a Centennial Research Chair in the Global Institute for Food Security and represents Canada on the Arctic Council’s Sustainable Development Working Group’s (SDWG) Social, Economic and Cultural Expert Group (SECEG).

Terrestrial Working Group: Dr. Philip Marsh and Dr. Emily Jenkins
Contact: pmarsh@wlu.ca and ejj266@mail.usask.c

Dr. Philip Marsh is a Professor at Wilfrid Laurier University and holds a Canada Research Chair in Cold Regions Water Science. He began his Arctic studies at McMaster University in 1975 where his graduate research focussed on the hydrology of the Canadian High Arctic. In 1983 he moved to the National Hydrology Research Centre where his research concentrated on river ice of the Mackenzie River and the hydrology and ecology of the Mackenzie Delta. In 1991 he and his colleagues began research in the Trail Valley Creek and Havikpak Creek research watersheds in the uplands to the east of the Mackenzie Delta. This research program has continued to present and has focussed on the influence of the severe climate and permafrost on snow cover, energy and water fluxes over heterogeneous surfaces, snowmelt, melt metamorphism, runoff, evaporation, streamflow, ice covers, and lake levels. This work has aimed at improving our understanding of, and our ability to model, the hydrologic conditions in the cold regions. He has been involved in major international research programs in the Arctic and is currently the Principal Investigator of the Changing Arctic Network and the Director of the Trail Valley Creek Research Watershed. He has been the President of the Canadian Geophysical Union and received the J. Tuzo Wilson Medal, Canadian Geophysical Union in 2014.

Dr. Emily Jenkins (PhD, DVM, BSc Honours Zoology) is currently an Associate Professor, Department of Veterinary Microbiology, Western College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada, and previously served as Wildlife Disease Specialist for the Government of Canada. She is an associate member of the School of Public Health and an affiliate of the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative. She teaches veterinary parasitology, emergency management for public health, and One Health to veterinary and graduate students. As head of the Zoonotic Parasite Research Unit, she has an active research program and currently supervises PhD and veterinary undergraduate students. Her research takes a One Health approach to diseases that transmit among animals and people via food, water, vectors, and the environment in the Canadian North. She is currently chair of the Wildlife Health Research Fund and the Northern Studies Committee at the University of Saskatchewan, serves as Associate Editor of the International Journal for Parasitology - Parasites and Wildlife and on the Editorial Advisory Board of Food and Waterborne Parasitology, and Canadian representative to the Arctic Surveillance International Leadership Visitor Program and the Terrestrial Working Group of the International Arctic Scientific Committee.

Arctic Data Committee Representative: Dr. Julie Friddell
Contact: Julie.friddell@uwaterloo.ca

Julie Friddell
Dr. Julie Friddell is the Associate Director of the Canadian Cryospheric Information Network (CCIN) and the Polar Data Catalogue (PDC), Department of Geography and Environmental Management at the University of Waterloo. Dr. Friddell is the Canadian national representative to the Arctic Data Committee of the International Arctic Science Committee and Sustaining Arctic Observing Networks. Since graduate school, during which she produced records of 11,000 years of paleoclimatic change from a North Pacific sediment core, she has been committed to the proper stewardship of research data for public use. Since 2010, Dr. Friddell has co-led the successful evolution of the CCIN/PDC to be one of Canada’s primary repositories and online sources of Arctic and Antarctic data and information. Dr. Friddell, an experienced cryospheric and climatic researcher, is a member of the Canadian Tri-Agency Data Management Policy Advisory Committee, is one of four international scientific advisors to Environment Climate Data Sweden, and served as Chair of the Local Organizing Committee of the international Polar Data Forum II held at the University of Waterloo in October 2015.  

Page details

Date modified: