For more information on Joint Oceanographic Institutions and their
programs, go to their web site at: http://www.joi-odp.org/.
Announcement from October 4, 2000
From: John Orcutt, acting JOI President and Paul Stoffa, Chair of the
JOI Board of Governors
It is with great pleasure that we announce the appointment of Dr. Steven
R. Bohlen to the position of President of the Joint Oceanographic
Institutions and Executive Director of the Ocean Drilling Programs. Dr.
Bohlen, who is currently Associate Chief Geologist at the U.S.
Geological Survey (USGS), will join JOI/ODP on November 27, 2000.
Dr. Bohlen will succeed Admiral James Watkins (USN Retired) who stepped
down as President of JOI on October 1, 2000. Dr. John Orcutt of the
Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Director of the Cecil and Ida
Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics is serving as
interim President.
In addition to serving as Associate Chief Geologist at USGS, Dr. Bohlen
has also served as consulting professor at Stanford University
(1989-1995), Associate Professor (tenured) at the Department of Earth
Sciences and Space Sciences at the State University of New York at Stony
Brook (1985-1988), and postdoctoral research fellow at the University of
California Los Angeles' Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics.
As Associate Chief Geologist for Science in the Geologic Division of
USGS, Dr. Bohlen is responsible for the research funded by 10 line items
(USGS scientific programs) in the federal budget totaling $240 million.
Those funds support the work of 1,800 scientists and scientific support
personnel.
The scientific work directed by Dr. Bohlen includes: coastal and marine
research; global change and climate history; earthquake, volcano,
landslide hazards reduction programs; geomagnetic and space weather
programs; energy and mineral resources programs; and geologic mapping
and ecosystem programs.
Dr. Bohlen also oversees the International Programs Unit of the USGS and
presents scientific findings and defends budgets within the USGS, and
before the Administration (the Department of the Interior, Office of
Science and Technology Policy, Office of Management and Budget) and the
US Congress.
He develops budget initiatives and performance plans relating to the
Government Performance and Results Act, sets scientific priorities and
oversees peer review of USGS work through the National Research Council
of the National Academy of Science.
Dr. Bohlen was born July 12, 1952 in Indianapolis, Indiana. He received
his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1979, M.S. from Michigan in
1977 and A.B. from Dartmouth in 1974.
A source close to Dr. Bohlen provided us with a less formal view of his
background:
"Steve was born and raised on a horse farm in Indiana and later along
the shore on Long Island Sound in Connecticut. He graduated from
Dartmouth College in 1974 and received a Ph.D. in geochemistry from the
University of Michigan in 1979. After three years as a Postdoctoral
Research Fellow at UCLA, Steve joined the faculty at the State
University of New York at Stony Brook where he was an assistant and then
tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Earth and Space
Sciences. In 1988, Steve resigned his faculty appointment and took a
research position with the Geologic Division in Menlo Park in part so
that he could marry Robin Reichlin, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory. Since 1995 Steve has been the Associate Chief
Geologist for Science either in an acting or real capacity. He and his
wife Robin, now a Program Director at the National Science Foundation,
live in Reston with their two boys, ages 7 and 9."
Please join us in welcoming Dr. Bohlen.
For more information on Joint Oceanographic Institutions and their
programs, go to their web site at: http://www.joi-odp.org/.