Ellen Mosley-Thompson is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Geography (Atmospheric Science Program) at Ohio State and past director of the Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center (2008-2018).
She uses the chemical and physical properties preserved in cores collected from both polar ice sheets and many 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 2,000 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 136 peer-reviewed papers and is the recipient of 53 research grants. She is a 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 has served several terms on the NRC-NAS Polar Research Board and five years on its Board on Global Change.
– From Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center