New Appointments
Chairman and Members
US Arctic Research Commission
As the United States prepares to join other nations in the International
Polar Year (IPY), President George W. Bush has designated a new Chair
and appointed two new members to the US Arctic Research Commission
(http://www.arctic.gov).
Mead Treadwell of Anchorage, Alaska, has been named Chair. Originally
appointed to the Commission in 2001, Treadwell is joined by new members
Vera Kingeekuk Metcalf of Nome, Alaska, and Charles J. Vorosmarty, of
Newburyport, Massachusetts.
Treadwell, whose term continues through February 2009, is a Senior
Fellow at the Institute of the North and is Chairman and Chief Executive
Officer of Venture Ad Astra, an Anchorage-based firm developing
geospatial positioning and imaging technologies. He succeeds George B.
Newton, Jr. who served on the Commission since 1992, and as Chair since
1996.
"The world will focus additional attention on the polar regions during
the upcoming International Polar Year (IPY), 2007-2008," Treadwell said.
"We haven't had an international effort like this for fifty years. Our
Commission will work to make sure the United States finishes the IPY
with a legacy of long-term monitoring and the research platforms
necessary to understand both the natural and human processes taking
place in the Arctic."
Metcalf is a Program Director with the Eskimo Walrus Commission, created
by Kawerak, Inc. to help Alaska's coastal walrus hunting communities
co-manage walrus with the federal government. She will serve as the
indigenous representative through February 2009 and succeeds Mary Jane
Fate of Rampart and Fairbanks, who served on the Commission since 1991.
Vorosmarty, a Professor at the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans,
and Space at the University of New Hampshire and the Director of the
Water Systems Analysis Group, will serve through February 2008.
The US Arctic Research Commission was established by the Arctic Research
and Policy Act of 1984. Its principal duties are to develop and
recommend an integrated national Arctic research policy and assist in
establishing a national Arctic research program plan to implement the
policy. Commissioners also facilitate cooperation between the Federal
Government, State and local governments, and other nations with respect
to arctic research, both basic and applied.
Every two years, the Commission publishes a "Goals and Objectives for
Arctic Research," and the next one will be delivered to the President
and Congress in January 2007. The Commission's next meeting is scheduled
for October at Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
For further information, please contact:
Kathy Farrow
Phone: 703-525-0111
E-mail: k.farrow [at] arctic.gov