The Alumni Board: Greetings from the President

Dear Alumni and Friends of Lamont,

Let me begin by introducing you to the newest members of the alumni board: geochemists Robert Kay (PhD ’70) and Louisa Bradtmiller (PhD ’08). A warm welcome to you both.

I imagine that I am like many of you who do not have a chance to get back to Lamont very often (for me it’s distance; I live in Southern California) but would like to stay more in touch. To this end, I highly recommend spending a couple of hours browsing the Lamont website, which does an excellent job of giving us a feel for the research being done at the Observatory today. If one wants to know the latest findings on climate change or what’s beneath all that ice in Antarctica, one can get a rapid education here. There are links to interviews with Wally Broecker on the realities of global warming and a lecture by Robin Bell in which she describes a recent expedition by Lamont scientists to map a mountain range buried deep beneath the East Antarctic ice sheet.

Be sure to check out the alumni section of the website as well. While there, you can join the Lamont-Doherty alumni and friends group on Facebook, which is frequently updated with links to national news articles featuring Lamont scientists. Want to network with other Lamont graduates? Join the LDEO alumni group on the professional online networking site LinkedIn.

In addition, I found that the Lamont website conveys how important outreach and public education have become to the life of the Observatory, a sea change from my days at Lamont in the early 1970s. Online one can watch any (or all) of the Public Lectures in which Lamont scientists describe their work to a general audience. As media outlets cut back their science reporting, it will become incumbent upon us to communicate our research (and its importance) to nonspecialists. On this topic, I think you will find the following Q & A with alumna Brenda Ekwurzel, staff climate scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, particularly compelling.

This year marks Lamont’s 60th anniversary. In browsing the website, one is reminded of the remarkable role the Observatory has played in the history of the geological and oceanographic sciences. Founded in 1949 by Doc Ewing and a small group of pioneers who installed seismometers in the cellar and abandoned swimming pool of the Lamont estate, it has evolved into a major education and research institution—an indisputable leader in the quest for insight into the workings of our planet and an important communicator of the challenges we face.

I look forward to catching up with a lot of you at the Lamont annual AGU alumni meeting and reception on December 15.

Sincerely,
Steven C. Cande, PhD ’77

Fall 2009

Some alumni board members with director Mike Purdy at
Open House 2008

Alumni Association
Board of Directors

President
Steven Cande
Scripps Institution of Oceanography La Jolla CA

Directors
Louisa Bradtmiller
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Mary Ann Brueckner
Palisades NY

Mike Coffin
National Oceanography Centre
Southampton UK

Stephen Eittreim
Palo Alto CA

Emma (Christa) Farmer
Hofstra University
Hempstead NY

W. Arnold Finck
Palisades NY

P. Jeffrey Fox
Texas A&M
College Station TX

Robert Kay
Cornell University
Ithaca NY

Rudi Markl
Rye NY

Arthur McGarr
Palo Alto CA

Gregory Mountain
Rutgers University
New Brunswick NJ

Joyce O’Dowd Wallace
Goshen NY

Michael Rawson
Washington Township NJ