Project Credentials

The Arctic I.CC.E. Project has been endorsed by the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC).  The ICC is a non-governmental organization dedicated to the common good of the Arctic region.    

In addition, the Conservation Science Institute (CSI) awarded me a Fellowship to pursue this project.  CSI is dedicated to conservation science, to the restoration of habitats, species and environmental systems.  The organization provides support to emerging researchers around the world through its Fellowship Program.  It also offers mentoring, a place to publish and discuss research and networking opportunities.  

Observer, Not Scientist

I founded the Arctic I.CC.E. Project in 2004.  But I want to be clear: I am not a scientist or anthropologist.  I come to the project as an observer with a science background and as a former journalist.  On the other hand, I've accumulated enough experience on the subject of Arctic climate change by reading and discussing it voraciously, that from time to time I'm asked to discuss the topic in a public forum. I addressed a conference on climate change refugees hosted by the World Wildlife Fund in Tokyo in 2005 and in January of 2006 gave a talk to World Bank's Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development Network on the impact of climate change on Greenland's polar Inuit. And I’ve been a guest speaker at American and Johns Hopkins Universities, published a several articles and appeared in a number of news stories about climate change in the Arctic, including CNN-TV and the BBC.

My professional background is in communications.  I have twelve years of experience as a broadcast journalist and another 15 years of experience in public relations, most of it with the international communications firm of Fleishman-Hillard where I was a Senior Vice President and established the firm's global sustainability communications practice.  In addition, I’ve taught graduate communications at Johns Hopkins University.  

Unfortunately, my public relations and teaching career ended in the summer of 2008 when I learned I had metastatic breast cancer. I no longer have the energy to meet the demands of a high intensity job.  But in spite of the disease which has tethered me to weekly chemo treatments, I continue to work on this project.  In September 2008, with the help of 17 year old Jack Eiland, a friend who acted as sherpa, nurse and relentlessly adventurous traveling companion, I managed to get to Greenland.  In 2010 I returned to the Thule region with the help of a friend, hydro-geologist Vincent Day. I found on my 2010 visit that life in the region is changing so quickly that bi-annual visits were no longer enough; I needed to go annually.  

It is my intention, health and finances permitting, to return to Greenland every year from now on.

Very little of my formal education is relavant to this project.  My degree in Biology and Writing from Plymouth State University in New Hampshire. If nothing else, my degree gives me a healthy respect for the scientific method and the people who work so rigorously to understand global warming and find solutions to the crisis.